with a "long history of fraud''.

Phyllis Burchall, a self-employed computer analyst, had been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing more than $17,000 from Bermuda Industrial Gases Limited.

Burchall, who had been hired by the company to look at its computers, committed the offences while on bail for three others.

Those offences included stealing two cheques and forging them to the value of nearly $5,000, and stealing a $1,200 computer. She committed all of the crimes at businesses she was hired by.

When Burchall admitted the three offences in Magistrates' Court, she was sentenced to six months for stealing the cheques and one year for stealing the computer.

The magistrate ordered the sentences to run concurrently, but consecutively to the three-year sentence.

Burchall's lawyer Mr. Khamisi Tokunbo argued that the magistrate should have made the one year sentence concurrent.

"The interest of justice would have been adequately served if the magistrate had allowed the sentence to be absorbed into the three year sentence,'' Mr.

Tokunbo said.

But before he could argue any further, Chief Justice the Hon. Sir James Astwood dismissed the appeal. He told Burchall if the magistrate had sent her to him -- which he had the power to do -- he would have sentenced her to five years instead of three.

"You are very lucky the magistrate did not send you up here,'' he told her.