Cape Town - A former police captain who twice stole money totaling R34 019, was sentenced to eight years imprisonment, suspended for five years, by a Cape Town court on Thursday.
This was on condition that Lizelle Olivier repay the money by mid-July, magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg ruled in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court.
Sonnenberg declared the agreed suspended sentence fair and just, following plea-bargain proceedings.
Olivier worked for the financial division of the SA Police Service, first at the Steenberg police station, where she stole R17 019 between September 2008 and January 2009, and then at the Wynberg police station, where she stole R17 000.
Her duties at both stations included collection of money from police officials for their telephone accounts. Instead of paying the money into a special account, she kept it for herself.
When caught out at the Steenberg police station, she was not criminally charged with theft. Instead, she was disciplined and fined an undisclosed amount, given a suspended sentence and transferred to Wynberg.
She was sentenced for both the Steenberg and Wynberg thefts. She had repaid all but R914 of the R34 019.
A condition of the suspended prison sentence is that she repay the outstanding R914 by July 15, or face the eight-year prison sentence.
Sapa