WHAT HAPPENS IN A CASE OF CRIMINAL BREACH OF TRUST (CBT)?

You are generally regarded as having committed an offence of Criminal Breach of Trust (CBT) under sections 405 to 409 of the Penal Code if you’ve misappropriated, taken, used or disposed of any property (often money) which you have control over.

If you are convicted of an offence of CBT under section.405 of the Penal Code, you may be sentenced to a fine or up to seven (7) years’ imprisonment or both.

When it comes to deciding what type and amount of punishment to impose during sentencing, the Court will take into account a number of different factors to determine the level of culpability and harm such as the degree of trust placed in the offender, the period of time over which the offence was committed, how the money or property taken was used by the offender and the impact on the victim or on public confidence.

More serious categories of CBT include criminal breach of trust by a servant or agent (under section.408 of the Penal Code) and criminal breach of trust by a public servant, banker, merchant, factor, broker, attorney, or agent (under section 409 of the Penal Code).

Although imprisonment is often imposed by the Court for an offence of CBT, there are some deserving and less serious cases of CBT where only fines are imposed instead of imprisonment.

For example, CBT can take place when an employee pockets money received from his company’s clients instead of depositing the monies into the company’s bank account and then tries to cover up his actions by passing off newer payments as previous payments.

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