Frank Greenall: Collar colour: Is this justice?

JAILED: Cattle thief Ronald Hough's sentence as reported in last Thursday's Chronicle.

THE RECENT local conviction of a man for stealing 10 cows highlights a curious discrepancy in our legislature and judiciary: namely, the tendency to give much more serious weighting to theft of so-called "tangible" property as opposed to theft involving more abstract means.

Essentially, it is a distinction summarised by the terms "blue collar" and "white collar" crime. The net result is the common tendency of many judges to soft-pedal the gravity and collateral damage of the latter.

The above blue-collar case had accompanying issues, but Judge David Cameron was specific in his sentence of 10 months' imprisonment - one month for each of the 10 cows stolen.

The going monetary rate for a cow is about $1500. Ten months imprisonment, then, for roughly $15,000. Yet regularly we see perpetrators of fraud and theft by document for sums dwarfing this amount spared even a short stint inside.

What is the difference? I can only put it down to collar prejudice - blue collar theft is not good, but white collar is significantly less not good, it seems. Somehow, stealing folding cash or hard goods is deemed many times more diabolical than slickly grafting with dodgy paperwork, gross deception, or deft electronic manipulations. Assuming violence against a person is not involved, I wonder why.

Take the case of Stephen Versalko, the ASB Bank's Remuera investment adviser who siphoned off a cool $18 million, for which he received a six-year sentence. This equates to a month in jail for every $250,000 stolen. In comparison, the sentence for the theft of the cattle - at $1500 per month in goal - is nearly 170 times more punitive. Hmmmm. Very strange. And perverse. While Versalko's main victim was a major bank able to cope, similar offending has brought smaller businesses to their knees, and the ilk of Rod Petricevic & Co have wrought havoc on many individual lives.

Judges are constrained to a certain extent by legislated sentencing limits (to my mind, often unrealistically low), and so-called mitigations. Even Versalko's massive theft and Petricevic's fraud weren't enough to draw the maximum. One wonders what magnitude of theft and deception it takes. But nevertheless, examples abound of white collar theft of six-figure sums receiving the proverbial wet bus ticket, whereas theft of equivalent value goods gets the high jump.

Our courts often still take leads from the British judiciary, where similar white/blue collar dichotomies prevail. Watch the upcoming trial of those blue collars charged with the recent UK vault thefts, involving no physical violence. If convicted, you can be certain (if new legislated limits haven't been introduced) their sentences will be stratospheric. Then compare those with the derisory sanctions meted out to a scant few of those behind the recent gross malfeasance in the British financial sector, involving amounts that make the deposit box contents look paltry. Their Persil-white collars, it seems, warrant sentencing discounts for meritorious dress standards.

Often, too, judges' comments accompanying the blue collar sentence will be couched in certain familiar terms.

"This type of offending won't be tolerated," is an old favourite. Well, aren't all types of offending not to be tolerated - that's why they're offences! "A strong message of deterrence must be sent to the community," is another. Fair enough, but it's a sentiment seldom articulated at the white collar sentencing.

This is not to say that the cow theft sentence was inappropriate. It is still a significant offence involving a substantial sum. The gross discrepancy lies in the relativity of sentencing meted out for considerably higher-order theft. Even with absence of physical assault, white collar victims may still suffer debilitating psychological violence and emotional harm in the aftermath of businesses, family homes and life savings lost.

Perhaps judges - and legislators - need regular empathy training to be better able to walk a mile in the shoes of the victims of white collar marauders - and, fittingly, collar perpetrators irrespective of its colour.