The appellant, Ms Natasha Tanya Evans, was employed as a bookkeeper and paymaster by Silver Dove Import and Export CC. She had authority to load creditors and authorise payments from the company’s bank accounts and her employer’s personal account. Between August 2014 and August 2015, she altered creditors’ banking details to those of herself and her former husband and authorised 60 fictitious payments, each below R50 000, totalling R1 489 694.96. The proceeds were paid into her and her former husband’s accounts and used to purchase assets. Both were convicted on 60 counts of fraud on the basis of common purpose. For sentencing, the trial court treated the counts cumulatively and applied the prescribed minimum sentence under s 51(2)(a) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997, sentencing the appellant to 15 years’ imprisonment.
The appeal against sentence succeeded. The sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment was set aside and replaced with a sentence of eight years’ imprisonment, of which five years were suspended for five years on condition that the appellant is not convicted of fraud, attempted fraud, theft, attempted theft, or any offence involving dishonesty during the period of suspension.
The case clarifies the application of South Africa’s prescribed minimum sentencing regime for fraud. It reaffirms that minimum sentences under s 51(2)(a) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act cannot be imposed by aggregating multiple fraud counts where no single count exceeds the statutory threshold, thereby reinforcing a restrictive interpretation of penal statutes.