Shop manager admits $20,000 theft

No reparation order could be made when a retail manager who stole $20,000 from the shop he worked at, was sentenced to home detention and community work.

Judge Tony Couch was told at the Christchurch District Court sentencing that Daniel James Wright was going through the ?no asset procedure? at Insolvency New Zealand.

The reparation report prepared for the sentencing judge showed that his financial situation meant he had no funds to repay his former employer.

Defence counsel April Kelland said the conviction for theft by a person in a special relationship, which Wright had admitted, meant he could not go back to the management positions he had previously held.

He had approached Insolvency New Zealand and was working with the Salvation Army budgeting service to manage the money he now received as a beneficiary.

The offending, which took place over a six month period in 2006, had not meant he was living ?an opulent lifestyle?. The stolen money from 53 false transactions had been used to pay bills and debt.

She said Wright had acted impulsively when he was subject to depression and family pressures. He had co-operated with the employer and the police when the offending was uncovered.

Judge Couch said he could accept that Wright had acted impulsively 53 times over a six month period, and the use of false paperwork to cover his tracks showed premeditation.

Only Wright?s lack of previous convictions and the fact that home detention was now available as a sentence prevented a prison term being imposed.

He sentenced the 25-year-old to six months home detention at his Oaklands address and ordered him to do 150 hours of community work.