A judge has sentenced a hurricane-shutter fitter to five years in prison for defrauding nine of his clients out of $15,400 over almost seven years.
Garfield Antonio Robb was convicted of nine counts of obtaining property by deception in September last year.
The court had heard that Robb had either failed to fit the shutters despite taking payment for them, or had fitted “used, old or defective” ones.
The offences took place from May 2014 to October 2020.
Acting Justice Frank Williams, speaking via video-link, delivered the sentence as Robb sat in court, wearing a work shirt bearing the words ‘Screen and Shutter Installations’.
Asked if he had anything to say before the sentence was passed, Robb insisted that he did not owe customers $15,400 and that the work he was due to carry out was “almost complete”.
Robb also told the judge that the reason some of the work people had commissioned had not been done was because he had been sick.
Williams said Robb’s comments in court, as well as information outlined in a social inquiry report, indicated that he felt no remorse or empathy for the victims he had defrauded.
He agreed with the prosecution’s contention that Robb’s offences amounted to a breach of trust. “He was in a position of strength and made false promises he did not keep,” Williams said.
In relation to four of the victims, Williams sentenced Robb to two years in prison for each count, to run concurrently, and then, concerning the five other victims, handed down a sentence of three years for each, again to run concurrently. The two-year and three-year sentences are to run consecutively, for a total of five years.
He also ordered that Robb must compensate the victims for the money he took from them.
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