Shoplifter banned from riding bike at Essex shopping centre
Thief Callum Watt has been banned from taking his bike to an Essex shopping centre – after using it to flee after stealing from a shop. The 21-year-old targeted the House of Fraser store at Lakeside four times between September 2022 and February 2023.
Watt left his bike near the store entrance before grabbing designer jackets and t-shirts from a rail in the shop. He then went back out to his bike and pedalled away.
He also stole items including a bank card from a Mercedes A180, with the card then used at BP Orsett South. A few days later he stole four cans of lager from the petrol station at around 5.35am.
Watt, of Goodman Road, Grays, later returned to the shop to steal more lager that afternoon. His crime spree came to an end a short time later when he was arrested that evening in Romford.
A judge at Colchester Magistrates’ Court heard was stealing to fund his drug habit and had been convicted three times in the past six months for shoplifting. Watt admitted six thefts from stores before September 15 2022 and February 23 2023. Four of them from the House of Fraser store and two from BP Orsett South. He also admitted one charge of fraud by false representation.
He was jailed for a total of 14 weeks and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £154. He is banned from entering House of Fraser at Lakeside Shopping Centre for the next two years and from riding or taking his bike to the shopping centre.
PC Glen Foote, of the Essex Police Business Crime Team, said: “Watt being issued with a criminal behaviour order is great news for the staff and customers at Lakeside,” he said after the hearing.
“Criminal behaviour orders are designed to tackle serious and persistent anti-social offenders and there are serious penalties for breaching them. We won’t hesitate to seek such orders to protect businesses, their staff and their customers from repeat offenders.
“And, as with this case, where Watt has been banned from riding or being with a bike in and around Lakeside shopping centre, we can ask the court to tailor the CBO’s prohibitions according to a criminal’s offending behaviour.”
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