Former teacher jailed for 4yrs after stealing $1.3m

Honiara Magistrates Court sets precedent on misuse of public funds

The Honiara Magistrates Court yesterday delivered a landmark sentencing, sentencing a former school teacher from Malaita Province to four years imprisonment for embezzlement involving mistakenly deposited public funds. The court reaffirmed a critical legal principle: money mistakenly deposited into an individual’s account does not belong to them, and knowingly using it constitutes theft. The conviction relates to a mistaken government payroll pa…

Former teacher jailed for 4yrs after stealing $1.3m

The Honiara Magistrates Court has delivered a landmark sentencing where a former school teacher from Malaita Province was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment after mistakenly receiving $3.8 million of public funds that was deposited into her account. The sentencing was made on Monday on 5 January 2026. The incident occurred in December 2017. Eight months later, the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) detected the mistake and successfully recovere…