19th
Aug 2015
A court was told that a Haverfordwest tenant and his partner stole £3,000 of furniture from their former landlord, and still claim it is theirs.
The tenants have always stated that they are not guilty of stealing the furniture and appliances from their previous landlord on August 13st 2014.
However the court found the tenants guilty at the hearing on August 10th this year and the magistrate also found out that the Mr. Baker (the tenant) was a former colleague of Mr. Walker, his previous landlord.
They were sentenced the next day after being supplied by an ‘all options’ report by Julie Norman of the probation services.
The prosecutor, Vaughan Pritchard-Jones, stated that Mr. Walker, had bought the property in Haverfordwest to rent out and believing that Mr. Baker, a friend and work colleague at the time, could move in with his partner without a bond.
Pritchard-Jones said “They abused that trust, leaving that property and taking a lot of furniture with them,
“The defendants completely denied it, they said it was their property,” he added.
The court was told that most of the removed property had been recovered.
The probation services representative, Julie Norman, told the court that the couple, who have five children, strongly maintain that it is their furniture. The couple were only in the property for a short term and had left because of money issues; however the court heard that Mr. Baker had previous convictions for dishonesty, unlike the landlord.
The Defense barrister, Mark Layton said: “Mr. Baker still protests his innocence.”
He stated that both the landlord and tenant were of “equal culpability”, and any proposed suspended sentence for Mr. Baker and a fine for his partner would not constitute “a sustainable argument”.
The Magistrates were told that Baker had just been employed as a lorry driver; however the couple could not afford to pay any more than £8 each for the court debts.
Mr. Baker was handed a community order with 100 hours of unpaid work; he also had to pay £450 of costs, a £60 surcharge, and £50 compensation.
His partner received a fine of £165, with compensation of £50, a surcharge of £20 and costs of £450.
The former tenants told the court that they would pay back the landlord the total of amount of £1,245 at £8 per week, which the court accepted.
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