Sweet solution turns sour for sugar thief

ONE MAN’S SWEET SOLUTION to the sugar scarcity turned sour after he was caught and brought before the court.

Last Friday, Lorenzo Ince’s time as an employee at Corea’s minimart was cut short after he was caught on camera stealing 12 pounds of sugar.

Another employee of the minimart was the one who picked up on Ince’s dishonesty. She stated that she had gone to open the minimart as she usually does at 6:50am. When she arrived, she apparently met the defendant standing outside, and she let him in. Later she noticed that a store room which was usually left open, was locked. Upon opening it she noticed the defendant inside with his working bag in hand, and acting suspiciously.

An eager employee, she proceeded to check the cameras, and noticed the defendant taking the sugar. The police were then called in. The 28-year-old father of a three-month-old baby lost his job that day, after working at the minimart for a long enough time to be promoted from parttime to full-time work. He pleaded guilty to the offence on Monday before the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court.

Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett asked him to “explain to me what was going through your head.”

Ince calmly explained that sugar was going scarce, and he was taking it home for his own use.

He was asked if he wasn’t aware that the store had cameras, but Ince replied that he was.

“What should the court do with you?” Burnett asked the young father.

“Let me pay for them,” the defendant asked.

Although Burnett was unimpressed with the suggestion, musing that it was no punishment for that to happen, he stood the matter down for a while. After this, he was apparently not inclined to exact the full weight of the law on the sugar thief, and imposed a fine.

Ince was given until June 29 to pay a fine of $250, in default of which he will spend two months in prison.

LORENZO INCE