A burglar who stole almost £25,000 of stock from a mobile phone shop then tried to give the business the stolen goods back the next day - for a fee.
Marcus Williams, 25, was sentenced to imprisonment at Cardiff Crown Court after admitting burglary.
He broke into the Phone Station shop, in Priory Street, Monmouth in July and stole and estimated £24,217 in stock and caused around £2,950 damage.
Now the manager of that shop says it could mean he has to close the shop.
Williams was caught after being caught on the shop’s CCTV and the day after, he returned to the store to ask the owners if they had caught anything on the CCTV and told them he could return the stolen items for a fee.
"Hit Hard"
Phone Station owner Waqar Ehmad said his business had been “hit hard” by the burglary.
If his insurance company do not compensate him, the shop will face closure, he said.
He said: “I don’t care what the sentence was. I don’t care who did the burglary. I care about my stock and my business.
“It’s basically a small investment business but with high liability because our customers leave their personal phones with us.
“The burglary affected me very badly because if my insurance claim declines for any reason then I have to close down the business.”
"Drug issues"
Williams was arrested at an address in Cinderhill Street, Monmouth, and some of the stock stolen from the shop was found.
He initially claimed the items belonged to his grandmother but he later admitted he had stolen the items from Phone Station.
In mitigation, the court heard that Williams had a number of “drug issues”, particularly with heroin and had built a number of drug debts, owing in the region of £3,000.
He claimed that pressure was put on him to discharge the debt with harm threatened against him and his family.
Mr Ehmad, who has been running the Phone Station in Monmouth for around two years, said he had no knowledge of Williams before the burglary.
"I feel angry"
He said: “I didn’t know who he was before all of this but local people seemed to be quite happy because of my camera we got him.
“I feel angry but I couldn’t do anything about it other than ring the police.
“He took the stuff that would have been useless to him but was valuable to us.
“It was personal for me because he did too much damage, what he didn’t need he tried to break.”
Williams, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment.
see-http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/phone-shop-burglar-stole-25000-11800028
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