Man ordered to pay $6 for stolen cheese

A 21-year-old from Greiggs must compensate Massy supermarket in the sum of $6 after stealing cheese from them last Friday.

Imran ‘Dollars’ Garrick appeared at the Serious Offences Court yesterday charged with the crime of stealing one NorthB coloured vege cheese, valued at $6, from MASSY supermarket in Arnos Vale.

Garrick pleaded guilty, smiling sheepishly after those in the courtroom, especially the prisoners sitting at the prisoner’s bay, laughed at the charge that he was given.

During mitigation, when he chose to say nothing for himself, Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias queried about his education. The 21-year-old told her that he reached sixth grade, and never went to secondary school.

He is employed on Fridays and Saturdays selling onions and potatoes in town.

The cheese was recovered as Garrick was stopped on his way out of the supermarket.

“Just so? You nah even tek bread with it?,” the chief magistrate asked the defendant who smiled sheepishly again.

He said he had bread with it, and so Browne-Matthias responded, “Bread does eat good just so you know.” She told him that he now has a criminal record now, and that he spent the whole weekend in custody.

“You had the bread, you coulda just eat the bread alone,” she told him.

Garrick, who had no prior convictions before the one he received yesterday, was spotted by the Loss Prevention Officer at the supermarket last Friday at 7 p.m. while she was patrolling in the area of the deli. He had the cheese in his hand, and the officer kept him under close observation. She saw him put the cheese in his front pants pocket.

She alerted plain clothes officers who were present at the supermarket, and they lay in wait for the defendant as he passed the cashiers. Garrick did not pay for the item, and therefore he was stopped.

The defendant was taken to the police station where he verbally admitted to the offence. He also handed over the cheese.

Garrick said he had nothing to say.

While sentencing him the chief magistrate told him she was concerned about him with regard to his education, and asked him to try to address this because he would always be a little disadvantaged in society, with his interactions etc.

“It is possible, you can do something,” she told him about completing the basics.

She also told him that sometimes people want things but if “the finances” just aren’t there, then they have to do without it.

She said that she was just going to order compensation to Massy in the sum of $6, and that Garrick had already spent the weekend in custody with regard to the cheese.

The defendant said that he had the money on him, so the $6 was ordered to be paid forthwith; in default, he will spend a week in prison.