Appeal for suspended sentence knocked back

A mother who gave birth to her second child while serving a lengthy prison sentence for stealing has lost an appeal to have her prison sentence suspended

A heavily pregnant Marlee Veness leaving the Alice Springs Supreme Court with her partner

• Mum appeals to overturn jail sentence over half-a-million dollar theft
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AN ALICE Springs mother who gave birth to her second child while serving a lengthy prison sentence for stealing almost $500,000 from her employer has lost an appeal to have her prison sentence suspended.

Marlee Dawn Veness was sentenced in 2019 to five years and three months jail, with a non-parole period of 50 per cent, after pleading guilty to stealing $486,055 from Alice Springs Helicopters.

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Veness’s lawyer Felicity Gerry QC launched an appeal on her client’s behalf, saying the sentencing judge – Acting Justice Anthony Graham – failed to consider the best interests of her two-year-old child, as well as her unborn baby, when he handed down his sentence.

“The removal of a child from a parent … and the taking of an unborn child into prison … is more serious or as serious than this type of financial offending.”

However, Court of Criminal Appeal Justices Grant, Blokland and Mildren delivered a decision earlier this month refusing to grant Veness leave to appeal her sentence. They said the wellbeing of Veness’s children was already taken into account during sentencing.

“While issues relevant to an offender’s children are appropriately taken into account as a sentencing consideration, it is clear from the sentencing remarks that those matters were taken into account by the sentencing judge,” the Justices said in their judgment.

The Justices said separation from children was an unavoidable consequence of committing such serious offending.

“Overall effect of the submission was to give the interests of the children priority over other relevant principles and purposes, and the objective circumstances of the offending. This is not a permissible approach to sentencing …” the judgment said.

“Many, if not all, offenders sentenced to a term of imprisonment suffer a variety of collateral consequences of incarceration which may include anguish and uncertainty over relationships, particularly with children,” the court heard.

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Veness was in a position of trust at Alice Springs Helicopters and spent the money on lifestyle goods including horses while her employers and their families suffered from debt and stress.

Veness worked as a personal assistant and used an accounting program to “disguise” 147 bank transactions into her own account between 2014 and 2017.

Pilots lost their jobs and the company fell into debt and owed a significant amount of money to the Australian Taxation Office.

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