Fadley Faisal

A local woman who pleaded guilty to a charge of committing Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT) in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday will learn her fate on May 2.

Magistrate Pengiran Hazirah binti Pengiran Haji Mohd Yusof is considering a fitting punishment for Norhawati binti Omar, 46.

DPP Affyian bin Abdul Rahman’s facts of the case state that the defendant holding the post of Acting Chief Cashier at a local bank, misappropriated BND120,000 on several occasions from the bank’s vault and ‘float can’ she had control of. An internal audit found a shortfall in its balancing, leading to a police report. Investigations revealed that the defendant was the culprit.

The defendant claimed that she had received an SMS from an unknown sender in the Philippines informing her of winning a cash prize.

She said she was instructed to send money as payment for processing fees to redeem the prize.

She said she made payments in a total of 45 transactions through Western Union, and on certain occasions when she was unable to leave office, she asked her husband to make the transfer and told him that he was assisting her with her work.

It was revealed that the defendant had taken BND100,000 from the bank vault and BND20,000 from the ‘float can’. The court also took into consideration the DPP’s submission that the defendant had not made any restitution to the amount misappropriated.