Thief made off from Telford pub with £500 worth of stolen booze in wheelbarrow
A man spotted taking a wheelbarrow full of alcohol worth £535 away from a pub cellar had been looking in a skip for a present for his child, a court was told.
Jacob Kaczmarek stole several bottles of spirits, beer and wine from the Bacchus pub in Wellington on impulse having seen it while retrieving a toy lorry from a skip.
Kaczmarek was homeless at the time of the offence on October 8 last year. The pub was closed for refurbishment after having been sold.
Mrs Kate Price, prosecuting, said the 27-year-old initially drank from some of the alcohol before returning to take the rest from the pub's cellar where the stock had been left.
But after being confronted while wheeling away the drink, he fled the scene before police arrived.
The defendant was linked to the crime by forensic evidence found on the abandoned bottles, valued at £535, and on the pub's cellar door.
Kaczmarek was not arrested until two months later when police stopped him in Newport for driving a car which had no MoT and was not insured.
The defendant initially gave officers a fake name and took them to an address he claimed was his home before escaping by jumping over a wall, but he was eventually rearrested.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of burglary, driving a vehicle without an appropriate licence and with no insurance and obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty when he appeared at Telford Magistrates Court.
Kaczmarek was ordered to carry out 175 hours of unpaid work as part of a 12-month community order.
For driving without insurance he was fined £110 and given six points on his licence. He was also ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £60 victim surcharge.
Shahnaz Dean, for Kaczmarek, said the defendant, who now lives at Stone Crescent in Arleston, had become estranged from his wife and children and was sleeping rough.
After seeing the toy lorry he then noticed some of the pub's alcohol stock, drank some and then broke into the cellar to take the rest to sell on for money. The court was told that Kaczmarek, who had no previous convictions, had actually been sleeping in the car that he was eventually caught driving.
A spokesman for the probation service said Kaczmarek had no drink or drug problems that were normally associated with such thefts.
"He's trying to sort his life out and we look to, as well as punish, rehabilitate people," said Mrs Dean, who added that the defendant was now living with a friend and looking to sort out his benefits and employment.
