25th
Jun 2015
A ‘rogue’ tenant, Vincent Baldwin cold heartedly stole a landlord’s dishwasher causing thousands of pounds worth of damage when water cascaded into the flat below. Baldwin, 31, also stole the fridge freezer and some door handles from the flat in Sunderland.
The judge was told that the tenant in November of last year, brazenly vacated the flat with his ill gotten gains leaving the front door wide open with water flooding onto the floor.
At the court hearing ,Prosecutor Sue Baker told the judge, that the tenant had been renting the flat from the landlord, Andrew Mercer, who also owned the flat below.
The landlord who lives away from the area was shocked to hear of the damage caused to both properties when his mother checked up on the property on November 21st, after he had received a phone call from a concerned tenant living in one of the adjoining apartments.
His mother found the unplugged dishwasher in the lounge and when she visited the flat the next day there was no sign of the appliance and the kitchen floor was flooded.
The stolen door handles together with the missing fridge freezer and dishwasher were worth £698.99.
Sue Baker did not have an exact cost for repairing the damage but estimated that it would be more than £2,000.
When the police tracked Vincent Baldwin down in Gateshead, he gave a feeble excuse that he believed the stolen items had been left by the preceding tenant, so he thought he would give them to his girlfriend.
At the magistrate’s court he pleaded guilty to theft and two counts of failure to surrender to bail. Although he did not admit to the criminal damage he was found guilty at the trail.
The probation office sent a report to say that Baldwin was a heroin addict and the judge gave him a 12 month supervision order and told to pay £500 in compensation.
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