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Fiji’s legal system has usually bent backwards to save first offenders from going to prison, a magistrate has observed while passing down a suspended sentence in a forgery case.
Suva magistrate Kaweendra Nanayakkara was sentencing Pita Waqanidrola to 18 months imprisonment suspended for two years.
Waqanidrola pleaded guilty to forging the signatures of 10 members of a landowning unit to obtain more than $4,600 in lease money from the Native Land Trust Board.
“You are a first offender,” Magistrate Nanayakkara told Waqanidrola.
“Hence I am of the view that you should not be sentenced to imprisonment. I am sure, given an opportunity, you would lead a crime free life,” he said.
Magistrate Nanayakkara said Waqanidrola, who has 10 children, had confessed before his clan and his apology had been accepted by them.
He said the apology was a genuine display of remorse.
