“You took up a lock and almost got lock up.”
That was the correlation which Magistrate Douglas Frederick remarked to Albert Athelston Doyle, who admitted stealing a $75.57 lock-set from a Bridgetown store on Saturday.
The Leinster Road, Waterford, St Michael man went before the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today.
The facts which Sergeant Martin Rock read, revealed that the 48-year-old man went to Carters & Company Limited on High Street. While there, a security guard noticed him in the aisle searching through his bag, before asking the cost of a lock-set.
Doyle then walked to the front of the store and asked another employee the cost of the same item. He then placed the lock-set in an open space behind him, took a paper from inside his bag, put it over the lock and put both items inside his bag before leaving the store.
When the guard confronted him and requested a search, the lock-set was handed over.
When Magistrate Frederick referred to Doyle’s criminal record and the number of similar offences there, Doyle explained that that was when he was young.
“Now I am older,” he said. He added that he was accustomed going to the store and interacting with staff.
The court ordered Doyle to pay $1,000 in one month, with the alternative of three months in prison.