Crook jailed for stealing from bar, co-worker’s locker

A 47-year-old man has been sentenced to three months in prison after stealing speakers from a bar he frequents, and a cellphone from a co-worker’s locker.

Andrew Jack, a resident of Rillan Hill, was sentenced by Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne at the Serious Offences Court yesterday, December 2 for two crimes he committed this August.

This first of these offences occurred on August 11 a night that the defendant, as he regularly does, was patronizing 73-year-old Harold Llewellyn’s West Side Bar located at Battery Hill. Due to how often Jack frequents the Bar, the owner knows him well. Therefore, the barman was able to recognize the defendant on CCTV footage showing him entering the back room of the establishment and stealing one 15-inch speaker belonging to Llewellyn, valued at EC$450. The defendant was shown removing the speaker and placing it in his backpack.

Yet again, on August 23, Jack committed another misdemeanor, this time with a white Samsung Galaxy J-7 cellular phone valued at US$250. His victim this time was Vivian Quashie of Rockies. The phone, complete with a Digicel SIM card valued EC$15, a two gigabyte memory card valued at US$10 and an orange cell phone case worth EC$5, was taken from the locker of the complainant. Quashie, a messenger working at the Kenmars Mall had placed it there for safe keeping while he went to eat breakfast. Jack was also employed at the Mall, giving him access to the lockers.

When he returned to his locker, Quashie found his phone missing, and reported the crime to the authorities.

After investigating, the police officer in charge of the matter met the defendant at Her Majesty’s Prison, and took him to the Criminal Investigations Department(CID). During an interview Jack admitted to the offence, and volunteered a written statement.

However, the Samsung Galaxy J-7 has yet to be recovered.

The 47-year-old’s criminal record was produced to the court.

Although Jack did not want to offer any mitigation to the magistrate at first, when he was being sentenced for the second crime, he said that he stole the phone because someone had stolen his phone.

Browne told him that stealing someone else’s phone in retaliation, not knowing if that person is even related to the incident, did not make sense.

She found the offence to be aggravating because Jack was in a position of trust as an employee of the Mall and had access to the locker area. The magistrate also noted that the defendant had been given an opportunity at employment.

In the theft of the speaker, Browne also considered that Jack had breached trust because the barman knew him well as a frequent customer. She believed this would have enabled him to go into the backroom more easily.

For neither offence did she find any mitigating factors.

While a three month incarceration was meted out for each theft, the sentences are to run concurrently.

“You don’t do things so. Totally unnecessary,” the magistrate stated.