A shop assistant was caught stealing £5 by his employers when they hid it underneath his keyboard.

Magistrates in Colchester heard bosses at Miller Brothers in Tollgate, Stanway, Colchester, had marked the £5 and later found Simon Margerison had it.

Margerison, 24, of Hamilton Road, Colchester, admitted a charge of theft when he appeared before magistrates in Colchester on Friday

Annette Redgrave, prosecuting, told the court Margerison worked on the tills at the shop at the time of the incident on November 29.

But bosses had concerns about whether to trust him and hid the £5 under the keyboard where he was working.

She said he was seen removing it and when he was later confronted, he said he thought it was lost and had intended to keep it.

Margerison, who was not represented, admitted he knew the money was not his and he had intended to keep it to buy some lunch.

"I found £5 under a keyboard at work, a colleague said he was going to have it but I said I was going to because I had found it.

"As a result I have lost my job where I worked for 18 months and it is going to be hard for me to find another one because of the nature of this," he said.

Magistrates told him because of the unusual circumstances, they would conditionally discharge him for 12 months and ordered him to pay £55 toward costs.

Published Monday, December 16, 2002

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