A former adviser who pleaded guilty to misappropriating $1.9 million of clients' funds has had her sentence reduced by almost four years.
South Australian, Tina Louise McPhee, pleaded guilty to 181 counts of theft, while she was trustee of investment money for six of her clients – brain injury compensation payments for two of her victims and compensation payments for four children who lost their mother and sibling in a car accident.
McPhee was initially sentenced to 13 years imprisonment with a 10-year non-parole period on 16 May 2014. However, the Supreme Court of South Australia reduced her sentence to a maximum of nine years and two months with a non-parole period of six years, backdated to commence on 23 July 2013.
Court documents revealed that McPhee conducted her own business as a financial adviser under an agency relationship with AMP LTD, when over a six year period, between 14 August 2006 and 16 October 2012, she committed the 181 offences whereby she withdrew and spent on her own purposes funds totalling $1,949,827.43 from her clients' trusts.
"The amount of money stolen, the persistent and repeated nature of the offending, the lengthy period over which the thefts occurred, the gross breaches of the positions of trust occupied by the appellant, and the fact that the motive was simply greed not need, render the offending as comprising very serious examples of the offence of theft and as offending which, on any analysis, deserves condign punishment," the judge said.
However, the Court ruled that the original sentencing judge had "erred in having regard to a total amount thought to have been stolen in the order of $3,791,690 rather than the approximately $1.95 million charged and proved", when sentencing McPhee.
Following her initial sentencing in May, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission permanently banned McPhee from providing financial services and engaging in credit activity.
