Under The Counter was delighted when a serial shoplifter got banged up after a three-month crime spree.
Layton Richards had stolen £3,463.96-worth of stock from 19 different stores along the south coast of England, his haul including 798 Crème Eggs.
The 29-year-old from Portsmouth is now starting an eight-month stretch in the big hoose. UTC wondered if he was sharing a cell with another wrong ’un who has previously graced this website, the man whose name sounds like a Scots euphemism for a toilet, Joby Pool.
Regular readers will recall that Pool was himself incarcerated last July, also for nicking Crème Eggs. Unlike Richards, who averaged 33 eggs over 24 separate offences, Pool operated on a grander scale, stealing a whopping 200,000 of the tasty treats in one fell swoop.
If you’re thinking “that’s one hell of a trench coat with very deep pockets he must have been wearing,” a word of clarity is required. Rather than loiter in seaside c-stores, Pool instead blagged an articulated lorry chock-full of chocolate.
Or rather, he tried to. Caught in mid-getaway on the M42, he is now doing 18 months.
It is often said the polis don’t take shoplifting seriously. However, if you compare the two sentences, it seems that at least the judiciary does.
Shoplifter Richards was handed around one month of jail time for every 100 Crème Eggs stolen, according to UTC’s abacus. The Auld Boy reckons that if truck-taking Pool was subject to the same sentencing guidelines, he’d be sewing mailbags for the next 167 years.
