“Happy now?” Anthony Bennett said in a soft but clear voice, turning towards spectators in a courtroom as he was handcuffed and led away to start a four-month sentence for theft.

Moments before, his wife, Linda St. Louis, had stormed out of the courtroom, shouting an expletive as she left, after hearing Justice Leslie Chapin’s sentencing of Bennett to jail for the theft of a plant in October 2009 from a store on Spadina Ave.

The judge noted that Bennett was on probation at the time of the offence, and that given his lengthy criminal record — “he has a criminal record that goes back to 1976 and 54 convictions” — a four-month jail term was appropriate.

She also noted that, in the victim impact statement read to the court, the woman working alone in the store where Bennett had stolen the plant said she was “fearful of him” and that at one point Bennett had tried to hit her with his bike.

Justice Chapin said that, although Bennett, who has a 20-year addiction to crack cocaine, has been “doing well in the last six months . . . and attending Narcotics Anonymous” meetings, he must be made aware that there are “consequences of this type of behaviour.”

Bennett, 52, first gained notoriety after he was captured and subdued in a citizen’s arrest case in May 2009 involving Chinatown grocer David Chen. Chen was later acquitted of assault and forcible confinement in connection with his citizen’s arrest of Bennett after he stole flowers from Chen for the second time in one day.

In a separate case also heard on Monday, Justice William Bassel gave Bennett a three-year suspended sentence for thefts of plants last May and June from the Jungle Fruit Mart on Kensington Ave.

Bassel also approved banning Bennett from Chinatown and Kensington Market (the area bounded by College, Beverley, Queen and Bathurst Sts.) for three years, which was a joint submission from both the prosecutor and Bennett’s lawyer, Donald Powell.

The judge took into account that Bennett had served 42 days in jail prior to his trial in November and he gave him a three-year suspended sentence.

The judge was told by Bennett’s attorney that Bennett plans to move with his wife to British Columbia where he has a son, possible employment and will seek further help for his drug problem.

In sentencing Bennett, the judge said Bennett’s reputation for “helping himself” to goods was an “insulting and terribly shabby” way to treat hard-working merchants.

But he noted that Bennett did plead guilty and there have been no “new charges” in the last six months. He also noted that Bennett has done volunteer work at a community centre and is trying to deal with his drug addiction.

“It’s a tough monkey to get off your back,” he said to Bennett in court.

Bennett told the judge he “felt bad after putting these people through all that.”

When the judge asked Bennett if he was getting through to him, Bennett responded, “Yes, sir.”