Android Authority/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

Charity begins by stealing things and taking them home.

However if you get home and you can't get the thing you've stolen to work, charity ends with you taking the thing back.

Yes, I am sober. Please let me explain. A man from Sunderland in northern England stole an Android tablet from a charity store, according to court documents. Christopher Hooson apparently saw it in the window of the Jonny Kennedy store in Whitley Bay and thought: "I'll have that."

There was one small problem. When he brought it home he didn't know how to get it to work. It's unclear why this was so. What is clearer is that, eight days later, Hooson took it back to the charity store and showed his deep good-heartedness. He tried to donate the tablet back to the store.

This move was unwise. Even charity stores have CCTV. And so Hooson, age 33, ended up in court to defend himself.

As the Telegraph reports, he claimed he'd forgotten that he'd put the tablet in his bag. This may have been a charitable interpretation of the facts.

The prosecutor explained that the only reason Hooson had brought the tablet back was that he didn't have "the necessary equipment" to make it work. I am not sure whether the prosecutor was referring to technical equipment or cranial equipment.

The judge, calling the theft a "particularly mean offense," wasn't impressed with Hooson's explanations. He fined Hooson 75 British pounds (around $117). The tablet itself was valued at only 50 British pounds.

One moral of this tale is that it's immoral to steal from a charity store. Another is that if you're going to steal a gadget, a little aforethought doesn't come amiss.

A final moral, though, is that attempting to give the gadget back to the store from which you stole it is asking for karma to show its mischievous side.