A prolific Wrexham shop thief has rejected the chance he was given to avoid custody.
Kevin Arron Crocombe, 40, of Llys Penuel in Rhosllanerchrugog, admitted three charges of theft when he appeared at Mold Magistrates' Court on Thursday, 8th July 2021.
Magistrates heard that Crocombe, who was handed a suspended sentence for like offences just a few weeks earlier, repeatedly targeted the Ruabon Park Service Station in Ruabon.
On 7th May he entered the shop and left with £20 worth of baby milk without offering payment; on 21st June he walked out with £228 worth of energy bars; and on 5th July he took £120 worth of toiletries.
The offences put Crocombe in breach of the suspended sentence order for the second time. On the first occasion, Magistrates' decided against activating the sentence and imposed a community order instead. On this occasion the bench took a very different point of view.
Rhian Jackson, prosecuting, told the court that Crocombe had 30 convictions for 69 offences, the majority of which were theft and kindred offences. She added that none of the goods stolen from the service station had been recovered.
Wendy Shurrock, defending, told the court: "This defendant does apologise. "For many years he has struggled with heroin, which has resulted in many offences.
"The reason why the suspended sentence was not activated previously is that probation felt he was doing well.
"Largely as I understand it, probation would say he is still doing well in relation to his appointments and not taking heroin.
"On one hand this is a defendant trying hard to take advantage of what is being offered to him.
"Unfortunately having stopped heroin, he's struggling with cocaine and these offences relate to cocaine."
Activating the suspended sentence in full, Andrew Stubbs, Presiding Justice, told Crocombe: "This court gave you an opportunity and gave you a community order.
"Clearly you've learned nothing from the chances you have been given."
Crocombe was also sentenced to 6 weeks' custody concurrent for each of the three theft offences, but to be served consecutively to the suspended sentence, giving a total custodial sentence of 26 weeks.
He was ordered to pay £128 in compensation, but no order was made for costs or victim surcharge.
2 comments:
So the suspended sentence was a mistake.
And choosing not to activate the sentence was another mistake.
But that’s ok. Because the store can afford to keep being victimised?
There are certain circumstances where a community order is preferable to a suspended sentence order - e.g. a 3 year community order can be imposed whereas the maximum operational period of a suspended sentence order is only 2 years. The conditions attached to a community order can also be made more onerous, whereas they shouldn't really be for a suspended sentence order (as the threat of custody is deemed punishment in itself).
As I often say, it's difficult to grasp the full picture from reading local newspaper reports.
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