Fadley Faisal

A local man was recently sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and two strokes of the cane by the Intermediate Court.

Awangku Muhamad Arif bin Pengiran Rosmale, 27, pleaded guilty to committing theft and breaking into restaurants in the Kiulap area, on three occasions.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sabrina binti Haji Mahmud stated that at 10am on January 15, a supervisor at a restaurant in Kiulap arrived for work to find the top cabinet door on the cash counter open.

He discovered that the cash monies inside the tip box and petty cash box were missing, along with a customer’s cap that had been lying on the counter.

The supervisor also found a slight damage at the bottom of the door. Further search of the premises revealed that a 10.1-inch Lenovo Tablet had gone missing.

After informing his manager, they checked the restaurant’s CCTV footage, which showed a man entering the premises at 5.23am and rummaging through the top cabinet at the cash counter.

Several days later, on January 20, an employee at another restaurant in Kiulap arrived for work at 8.30am, together with his co-workers when they saw that the cash counter had been ransacked.

They inspected the premises and discovered that a JBL Speaker, a 14-inch Dell XPS laptop, a Huawei Nova Mobile Charger, an Android Mobile Charger and a set of keys to the cash register had gone missing. The employees also found that the security alarm on the first floor of the restaurant had been switched off, and that a window on the first floor was left ajar.

The defendant’s arrest came after reports made to the police about the break-ins. Judge Pengiran Masni binti Pengiran Haji Bahar presided over the case.