NPA given leave to appeal Brown's sentence

The state last month approached the Supreme Court to ask for a heavier sentence against Brown after the Western Cape High Court dismissed its application for leave to appeal the sentence.

The High Court sentenced Brown to a fine of a R150‚000 after finding him guilty on two counts of fraud relating to how he handled investments for the Transport Education and Training Authority and the Mantadia Asset Trust Company between 2002 and 2006.

The state had originally laid 192 charges against him.

Brown was also sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for each of the two counts he was found guilty on. But the sentence was suspended for four years on condition that he is not convicted of fraud again within the period.

The protracted case spanned just more than six years and was widely regarded as one of the biggest corporate scandals in SA.

"We welcome the decision and we will be ready to argue when the matter is on the roll. At the moment we have not received a date of when we will be visiting the court to argue‚" NPA Western Cape spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said.

The NPA in May claimed the the court (had) imposed a sentence that is startlingly and inappropriately lenient.

Jannie van Vuuren‚ acting for the state‚ argued during the application for leave to appeal in the Western Cape High Court last month that the court had misdirected itself and that he was sure another court would impose a jail sentence.

He said the court erred in finding that fraud without actual monetary loss did not fall within the minimum sentence provisions.

Van Vuuren further argued that the court had erred when it based the sentence on the "narrow" description of offences in Brown's admissions document. "It completely ignored the evidence already on record‚" he said.