Two Men Admit Stealing $33 Worth Of Food
Two men appeared in Magistrates Court yesterday [May 3] where they both pleaded guilty to stealing food from the Somerset Marketplace supermarket.
Stanley Gibbons, 55, admitted taking items including sauce and brown beef [worth around $10] on 1st May 2013. After apologizing, Gibbons explained to Senior Magistrate Archie Warner that “I was hungry at the time.” Asked if he worked, Gibbons told the Magistrate “I do odd jobs.”
The Senior Magistrate fined Gibbons $100 with ten days in prison to be served in default of payment of the fine, and the Magistrate required that the $100 fine must be paid today.
John Smith, 59, admitted taking two packets of uncooked beef steak [worth around $23] on 1st May. Smith — who said that he worked part-time — was fined $100 and required to pay his fine today or do ten days in prison in default.
Smith told the Senior Magistrate that he was “under the influence of alcohol” to which the Magistrate said “so you had money to buy rum but no money to buy food.”
This caused people in the Court to laugh, and the Magistrate told everyone it was “not a laughing matter.”
The Senior Magistrate said, “I understand the economic situation, but society must continue to function. Being hungry does not give a right to steal. This kind of behaviour must be discouraged.”
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At the rate this island is going this is gonna happen more and more.. You have people after they license their car they are broke for the week. Essential items like stables from the grocery are ridiculously expensive.
My daughter purchased a few grocery items from the Marketplace in Shelly Bay last Wednesday (discount day????) and her bill came to a whopping $67. She came away with a large brown paper bag with virtually nothing in it. This is what is to be expected in the absence of price control. The greedy just keep on taking from the needy. One day the tables are going to turn. All I can say is that Bermuda is rapidly going down the tubes because of the greed and selfishness of a few.
Warner is something else – If a white man stood before him, having stolen because he was hungry, he would have told him to go and sin no more. What really hurts my heart is seeing Black men – both young and old being swiftly sent to or threatened with Westgate Enslavement Camp on a regular basis. The Courts in Bermuda do treat whites differently to Blacks.
I must comment to this ridiculas sentences handed out to them two fellows. First and foremost, “why fine a person who hadn’t money to pay for food?” It would cost the people of Bermuda nothing at all if the Courts (Mr. Warner again) were to sentence these bies’ to do community services and earn the equivalent dollars as oppose to sending them to prison…Give them a broom a shovel and a trash can to sweep the streets but for Christ-sake stop Mr.Warner wasting the Publics time and monies by sending people to jail for menial crimes!
Instead of monetary fines or jail time, I think the courts need to find more creative ways of punishing these “criminals”…
How about requiring these people to use the money that would go toward a fine and create t-shirts which say “I stole from Marketplace, and I was wrong”. They would then have to go to Marketplace for half a day or so and help people get groceries to their cars, round up carts, etc. and explain to whomever asks what they did.
This kind of crime doesn’t need to be fought with jail time (an expense to tax payers).