A Teesside man couldn't believe his lucky stars when he found the door to a pizza shop wide open during the early hours of the morning.
John Millington, 27, of Harlech Close, Eston, admitted a charge of burglary when he appeared at Teesside Magistrates' Court last week.
Magistrates heard that Millington, who has 14 previous convictions for 17 offences, was walking past Pizza Roma on Fabian Court, Eston, at around 1 am on Wednesday, 2nd February 2022 when he noticed that the shutters were up and the door was open.
Rachel Butt, prosecuting, said that staff had left around half an hour earlier and been unable to secure the shop door due to a broken lock.
They did, however, pull down the shutter, but a malfunction meant it rose again after they had left the premises. £100 had been left in the till for use the following day.
CCTV caught Millington inside the premises.
"He crawls around the counter. He lifts up the till and throws the till on the floor," said Ms Butt.
"He then pockets the money and leaves the pizza shop."
Kate Clark, mitigating, said her client had been making his way home after an evening with friends when he noticed the insecure premises.
"The door was wide open. It wasn't just unlocked, it was wide open," she said.
Ms Clark described the offence as an opportunistic incident, adding: "He apologises to the court through me. He was embarrassed when he saw it on CCTV. He wasn't in a good place at the time."
Considering the circumstances, Magistrates decided to sentence Millington to a 6-month conditional discharge.
He was ordered to pay £100 in compensation, £85 towards prosecution costs and £22 surcharge.
Having read the relevant sentencing guideline, it would appear that circumstances have coalesced in Millington's favour on this occasion.
I must say though, given his previous, I do not think I would have been persuaded to give him any benefit of the doubt.
2 comments:
Perhaps the bench didn't read his antecedence.
It's disgraceful decisions like this that bring the Lay Bench into disrepute.
I wonder if they discussed their decision with the Legal Adviser
There may well be factors that have gone unreported that have influenced the bench's decision. Of course it may have been a DJ in the chair. The article is a bit vague in that respect. I stand by my comments though. His antecedence would certainly have been at the forefront of my mind.
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