Woman ‘escapes’ return to jail over stolen cash
(CNS): A woman convicted of stealing more than $64,000 from a bank in 2008 has avoided returning to jail after failing to pay a compensation order. Betty Pollard, who was sentenced to two years imprisonment after pleading guilty to stealing the money over an 11 month period, had also been ordered to pay back what she had stolen from her former employer, the Royal Bank of Canada, when she was released. However, the money had remained unpaid and the crown had sought to send Pollard back to jail, but after receiving a lump sum of $25,000 from her, the crown agreed Friday to a payment scheme to keep the woman out of prison.
The court heard that Pollard had made the lump sum payment from an undisclosed source but the delay had been as a result of her efforts to have the money released from her pension fund. For several months Pollard’s attorney was in discussions with the pension board about allowing Pollard access to her pension in order to pay the money to the courts to keep her from returning to jail. However, the attorney confirmed that the board had refused access to the money, regardless of her situation.
Defence attorney Nick Dixie told the court that now his client had made a payment of $25,000 she had agreed to a payment plan to pay back balance at a rate of $800pcm until December 2015, when the compensation order would be paid off in full.
As a result, prosecuting counsel Kenneth Fergusson confirmed that the crown was content to allow Pollard to retain her liberty on this basis and the court released her from bail. Pollard was warned by the judge, however, that if she did not keep up with the payments she could still end up in jail.
Category: Crime
I love it when all the "Christian Caymanians" demand more punishment. Read the research, punishment does not work as a deterrent or as rehabilitation.
everyone needs an opportunity to redeem themselves… that is why we have the rehabilitation laws which apply to most crimes (not the most serious, murder etc). If society doesn’t have such rehabilitation laws then there is no incentive for someone who made a mistake, error of judgment or knowingly did something like steal to stop behaving in that manner as they would have nothing to lose. The promise of rehabilitation is there to incentivize those who make bad decisions with their life an opportunity to redeem themselves after a period of time. We are Christian Islands aren’t we???? Give the lady a break every society have those who make bad decisions and later turn their life around in a positive way. Should she be marked for life? Of course not, stop your moralistic postings and get on with your own life and do something positive with it regardless of prior mistakes, errors of judgment or bad decisions.
Rehabilitation is the kind of lilly-livered liberalcrap that keeps criminals from getting properly punished and means we have so much crime in this country. Did this criminal rehabilitate? The evidence says "NO". She was convicted of another crime of dishonesty. And then she defaulted on her compensation order and from the report only paid up when immediately facing jail. A second chance maybe. But a third chance or a fourth chance – come on.
So much stealing goes on in Cayman because they all think they can get away with it. It is high time that the courts give these thieves the maximum sentence.
The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question is – where is the stolen sixty-four thousand dollars???
New cars?
Downpayment on a house?
Breast Implants and a Nose Job?
64K – hardly chump change – so why not repaid (even partially) at the time of the theft or when she was finally caught?
I wish the banks could pay me back for all my pension money they invested and lost!
Did not get one red cent either when they made a profit !
Those who run around here flying high in the sky while others pay the price must remember the unjust shall not go unpunished? Undisclosed source??????? like every thing else in this place the real truth is never investigated properly. Whatever happen to the Hummer???????
I'm pretty sure by "undisclosed source", that just means that the people who wrote the article doesn't know where it came from. I'm sure the people who actually received the money knows of its origins so some of you in the comments need to stop jumping to conclusions.
What is astonishing is that this woman was found guilty of further theft in December 2011, defaults on compensation orders and still avoids jail. The Crown should not be accepting the explanation of "an undisclosed source" for where the monies come from when dealing with a dishinest theif with multiple convictions. In order to avoid imprisonment she should have had to explain in detail where every cent came from.
WOW!
A bank robber walking the streets – say it isn't so!
At least she save the Appellant Court the bother of reducing her sentence for stealing from her employer since she NEVER received any jail time!
UGH UGH & UGH.
She actually did spend time for the crime and more than some convicted of crimes have served. This is further time that she would have had to serve IF SHE DID NOT PAY IT BACK!
She is still making an effort to repay her debt to society after having committed this crime, and already having served time in HMP, lets hope that the thousands of us that have, find out something good that she is doing and follow.
Maybe you should read the original post before you state she didn't recieve any jail time..what ever happened to second changes??
Better make sure she didn’t steal the $25k!
It was paid to Cayman Islands Government, let me just suppose they asked the appropriate questions to ensure that the funds are legitimate, i guess!
Those who enjoyed the windfall of this theft should also have to pay. what a shame the truth will never be known???????????
This will probably be the case going forward now given the non-compulsory aspect of pensions.
No standards…no society… Outrageous!
Unbelievable!!!!!
How disappointing that the order fell this much into arrears before action was taken. This is not sufficient punishment for a crime that happens far too often in Cayman. Jail should be the minimum and measured in years for breach of trust. XXXX