Drink from bottle in Asda costs man £86
A SUPERMARKET shopper quenched his thirst by drinking from a bottle he took from the shelves and then replaced, a court was told.
Harrogate magistrates heard on Tuesday (Nov 24) how Adam Robert Grange had been in the town's Asda store late on the evening of October 26 when a member of staff viewing CCTV pictures of what was going on saw him take a 1 bottle of soft drink, drink from it and replace it before leaving.
Prosecutor Sam Rogers said 23-year-old Grange had been stopped outside and detained until police arrived. He had said: ''Why can't I just pay for it? I was dry, I needed a drink.''
When Grange, of Oxford Terrace, Harrogate, pleaded guilty to theft his solicitor Stephen Culleton commented: ''One suspects that if this case runs its natural course, he will be paying upwards of 86 for the swig of drink he took at Asda.''
Mr Culleton said Grange, who had been a little muddleheaded while in the store - he had apparently drunk from one bottle and paid for another - was adamant he had been invited back inside to make full recompense.
"This might have been a ruse on the part of security staff to calm things down, but I cannot comment on that,'' said Mr Culleton.
He said Grange, a self-employed labourer, would be ''assisted in minding his Ps and Qs over the coming months'' if he was given a conditional discharge.
Court chairman Judith Thomas, who gave Grange a nine-month conditional discharge with payment of 85 costs and 1 compensation, told him: ''It was an unpleasant theft because you left something you had drunk from for somebody else to buy.''
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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