A 32-year-old man responsible for a spree of break-ins to five different residences in the Faleata district within two months has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for those burglaries. 

The defendant is Moke Maka, a single man of Faleula and Salesatele Falealili and was charged with 13 different counts. 

There are five charges of burglary which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment for each charge, five other accompanying charges of theft and three counts of intentional damage. He pleaded guilty to the charges. 

The Court heard the charges arose out of five separate incidents starting from May this year. 

The first offending occurred at the Mariyon Samoa Shop and Bakery around 12am at Lotopa. 

According to the summary of facts the defendant damaged the mesh wire of the shop to enter and stole $500 tala cash and cigarettes with the total of stolen goods and damaged property valued at $1090. 

The second incident occurred at Vaitele where he removed the louvre from the house to enter. 

He stole alcohol, jewellery, boxes of tinned fish, corned beef and the total value of stolen items was $555. 

The incident was reported to police and none of the items were recovered. 

In the third offence, Maka entered the home of a 58-year-old woman with four children. 

He broke the victim’s gate to enter the property and damaged the back door lock to enter the house. 

The total value of stolen items, which was a cellphone and a gym sports bag, was $244. 

The fourth incident occurred on the same day of the third offending at Vaitele fou. 

Maka managed to damage the chain link fence to enter the property and stole boxes of tinned fish, electronic devices and other items at the total value of $4049. 

The fifth incident also took place on the same day in Vaitele and the victim was an employee of the Ministry of Revenue. 

The Court heard the victim’s family was in Savaii for a family matter. He stole cellphones, jewellery and an umbrella and the total value of stolen items was $200.  

The break in was discovered by a relative who was looking after the property and reported the incident to police.  

It was on the same day that the defendant was located and apprehended by Police at the Apia Police post.

Justice Fepuleai AMeperosa Roma handed down the sentence in October.

He noted the aggravating factor was the significant value of stolen items being $6500 and value of damage to the properties being $735.

The victims impact report for the five complainants were also taken into account by the Court.

Maka is not a first time offender and has previous convictions of similar offending in 2016 and 2019 for which he was also given a custodial sentence.

“In over a short period of two months, you broke into five homes and stole numerous properties with a significant total value of over $6,000, also causing damage to some of the homes,” said Justice Roma during sentence.

“Clearly the imprisonment sentences handed to you by the Court in 2016 and 2019 for similar offending have done nothing to deter you from offending.   

“In fact, from the trend of your present offending, you would have continued had you not been caught by police.”

Just Roma made it clear that a sentence must hold the defendant accountable for the harm caused to the victims and community and deter him and others from committing the same offence.  

Prosecution recommended four years as starting point and considering the totality of the offending Justice Roma adopted four and half years as the appropriate starting point on the burglary charges.

He uplifted the starting point by 12 months for previous similar convictions and deducted time for the early guilty plea and recovery of a few items by Police.

The end sentence for Maka is four years imprisonment.