| Fadley Faisal |

THE Magistrate’s Court yesterday sentenced a local man to a year in prison after he pleaded guilty to a charge of theft from a house used for the custody of property.

Lakim bin Haji Seruddin, 43, also admitted to Deputy Public Prosecutor Aeny Zullizam’s facts of the case meted out before presiding Magistrate Dewi Norlelawati binti Haji Abdul Hamid yesterday.

The theft was committed at a house in Simpang 287, Kampong Serasa, in the early hours of June 26. Having scaled the fencing, the defendant then made his way to the storeroom, which was locked. He pried the door open using a screwdriver, entered the storeroom and took two Bosch drills worth BND600, before fleeing the scene. Later, he sold the drills to two people.

That same morning, one of the house occupants, a company employee, reported to a clerk that several of the company’s items were missing from the storeroom.

The clerk lodged a police report which led to the defendant’s arrest, and the stolen items were eventually recovered.

The defendant, who is both unemployed and a divorcee, pleaded for leniency before the sentence was handed to him, citing his mother’s illness.

The court gave consideration to the plea in mitigations, but was drawn to the circumstances of the case, in that it was premeditated and the stolen items were valuable to the owner. The defendant was also found to have held previous convictions.