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Jailed Equity Bank staff gets chance for second appeal

 

A cheques’ clearing officer jailed over theft of Sh5 million from Equity Bank has lodged a second appeal challenging a Magistrate court’s decision to convict and sentence him to a fine of Sh1 million in default one-year imprisonment.

Benson Mathenge, who had worked with the bank for 33 years, was jailed in October 2019 for posting a client’s five cheques into the wrong account after being “interrupted” by another client, leading to the loss of the money.

He has received the permission of the Court of Appeal to file a late appeal against a High Court judgement that threw out his first appeal and upheld his conviction and sentence.

Appellate judge Asike Makhandia found that Mr Mathenge’s was late in lodging the notice of appeal by one day on account of technical challenges with the Judiciary e-filing platform. The judge allowed his request for a time extension and directed him to also file the main appeal within 30 days.

Mr Mathenge was convicted and sentenced in October 2019 by the magistrate court in Milimani after being found guilty of the offence of stealing by a servant.

 Stole Sh5 million

He committed the offence on June 24, 2016, at Equity Bank Kilimani Branch in Nairobi County, where he was working as a Clearing Officer. He stole Sh5 million the property of the bank which went to his possession under his employment.

The Prosecution said that Mr Mathenge posted cheques which were in favour of Excel Petroleum into the account of Tandu Alarm Systems Ltd.

It was submitted that the correct account number was written on the back of the cheques and therefore the postings could not have been in error.

A Security Officer at the bank, Nicholas Chaw, testified that the beneficiary account of the funds had been opened two days earlier -on June 22, 2016.

He said he stated that the beneficiary, who withdrew the funds, had an existing loan with the bank. The loan was offset by the cheque deposits and the beneficiary made a withdrawal of Sh60,000 on the same day the miss postings were done.

The bank’s Branch Manager, Charles Gitonga Ndung’u, testified that he was informed by a customer that the cheques he had deposited had not been cleared.

Upon checking on their records, he realized that the said cheques had been deposited into the account of Excel Petroleum where they had all been cleared, and not the account of Tandu Alarms Systems where they were supposed to be deposited.

When he inquired from Mr Mathenge where he got the account number of Excel Petroleum, he stated that he did not know.

After an hour Mr Mathenge said that the proprietor of Excel Petroleum had interrupted him as he was processing the cheques when he had gone to check his balance and stop some cheques, which could have caused the mixed up.

Wrong account

When put on his defence, the appellant stated that he was the person who would receive cheques from clients, and then put the same into the system before they are verified by the supervisor.

He stated that on June 28, 2016, while on duty, a colleague from the Kimathi branch called him about the cheques he had deposited and when he checked, he realised that he had deposited them into the wrong account, which he did due to a customer who destructed him.

It was his evidence that there was no nexus between him and the beneficiary of the funds and that it was his first time to make such a mistake and that all the said cheques were verified by the Manager and therefore could not be reversed.

He testified that a reversed wrong posting could only be done if the money had not been withdrawn. He had worked with the bank for 33 years at that time and was familiar with cheque clearance.

He confirmed having interacted with the beneficiary of the five cheques when he had gone to stop payments of his other account.        BY  DAILY NATION   

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