A thief stole a donation box from a Dunedin shop, then minutes later created a diversion to swipe a second.
Ricky James Soper (36) got away with an estimated $300 and it was several days before staff at the Brighton Store realised the boxes had not been taken by the respective charities.
CCTV footage revealed what had happened. Soper pleaded guilty to the charges before the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
Court documents revealed little, only that the charities affected were the Heart Foundation and the SPCA.
Staff member Kathy Meikle, though, added more detail.
She was working in the shop when Soper entered on the evening of June 25 and ordered a scoop of chips.
While Ms Meikle put the fryer on, the defendant grabbed the first donation box and stashed it in his car.
When he got his food, he dropped the chips in the doorway on his way out.
Ms Meikle said ordinarily she would not have made a replacement batch but she was worried about Soper’s reaction as he seemed "a bit dodgy”.
So off she went.
"Well ... while I was cooking the next batch, he was helping himself again,” Ms Meikle said.
"He didn’t even help me clean up.”
Defence counsel Pete Tuala said Soper was serving a sentence of intensive supervision, which was imposed last month, for unlawfully taking a car and threatening property.
The thefts happened before that sentence was imposed but the charges came after, when he was finally identified.
Mr Tuala accepted a short term of imprisonment might be appropriate for his client, who had been remanded in custody.
Judge Stephen Harrop, however, said had the charges been in the mix when Soper was sentenced in July, it would probably not have affected the outcome.
He sentenced the defendant to six months’ intensive supervision to run concurrently with the term he was already serving, meaning the sentence was effectively unchanged.
Soper was ordered to repay $150 to each charity.
