2:30pm Tuesday 9th February 2010
TWO men spent the weekend in police custody because they stole some mackerel and olives from a Worcester supermarket.
Marek Kaszper, aged 25, and Lukas Slanina, 30, were arrested on Friday after they stole £4.67 worth of food from Aldi in Pheasant Street because they were hungry.
But the men, who both come from the Czech Republic, paid for a jar of gherkins.
Store staff noticed the two men acting suspiciously and monitored them on CCTV. They were seen selecting the items and putting them in a holdall.
They were stopped as they left the supermarket at about 7.30pm.
Adrian Jones, for the prosecution, said: “Both men were subsequently interviewed by the police, and both gave similar full and frank admissions.”
Both men said they were hungry and could only afford to pay for the jar of gherkins and so stole the rest of the items.
Kaszper and Slanina earn money working on farms, with Kaszper living at Temple Laugherne Farm, Oldbury Road, but both had found themselves in financial trouble after the recent bad weather meant they could not work.
Susie Duncan, in mitigation for her client Slanina, said: “My client came to work in the UK because he tells me things are very expensive in the Czech Republic, where he was a waiter and a roofer. Of the money he makes from farm work, he sends some home to his family.
“Because he hasn’t been earning any money, he has ended up on the streets recently.”
Defence lawyer Sam Lamsdale, speaking for Kaszper, said: “It is a very quiet time of year in terms of work and he has only had a few hours’ work each day.
“He believes he may have earnt about £100 last week, and he pays £20 a week in rent. At times, he struggles financially. It’s been a very difficult time for my client.”
Neither man had been working in the UK long enough to claim any form of benefits.
Magistrates gave both men a six-month suspended sentence.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/trade_directory/