10:00am Sunday 5th July 2009
By James Connell
A DAD has been jailed for stealing nappies, meat and alcohol and concealing them in a child’s buggy.
Samuel Roper, aged 32, of Lear Close, Dines Green, Worcester, admitted two charges of theft and a Bail Act offence at Worcester Magistrates Court.
The court heard how Roper entered the Co-op in the Bull Ring, St John’s, Worcester, on Thursday, June 11, selecting a bottle of wine worth £6.99, concealing it a child’s buggy and leaving the supermarket without paying for it.
He was challenged by security guards from the store outside the gates of Cripplegate Park, returning to the store with them.
Marie Watton, prosecuting, said: “He fully admitted the offence, saying he only had 3p in his pocket at the time.”
He also concealed two legs of lamb and nappies worth £15.34 in a child’s buggy at Aldi in Worcester on Wednesday, July 1.
He was detained outside where he admitted stealing them.
Miss Watton said: “He said he only had 5p in his pocket and was going to sell the meat to pay for gas and electricity and was going to use the nappies for his son.”
A probation officer told district judge Bruce Morgan that Roper had seven breaches of various community orders, imposed in the past as punishment, and had completed some unpaid work but still had 25-and-a-half hours left to do.
Sam Lamsdale, defending, said: “His partner is now expecting his second child.
“They tried to apply for a crisis loan but were refused because they already have a crisis loan outstanding.
“They were relying on friends and family to give them money. He was intending to sell the lamb to raise some money.”
Judge Morgan, handing out sentence, told Roper he had given him credit for his early guilty pleas.
He said: “To breach a community order seven times is totally unacceptable.
“This is not the court asking you to do this work. It is ordering you to do so and on several occasions you have said ‘I won’t do so’.”
Mr Morgan sentenced him to 20 weeks in prison and told him, with good behaviour, he would be out in half that time.
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