Marystown man sentenced for theft after not so total recall

A Marystown man charged with stealing from Sobeys was convicted this week, after the judge questioned how he could have no memory of being in the store but was adamant his wife wasn’t with him.

Even after identifying himself in photos captured by the grocery store’s surveillance cameras, Walter J. Antle told provincial court in Grand Bank he couldn’t remember being in the store at all on the date in question, and had no recollection of taking sleeping aids and non-alcoholic beer off the shelves and walking out without paying.

However, when asked if his wife had been with him in the store that day, Antle didn’t hesitate to say she wasn’t.

“Those two positions are mutually exclusive,” wrote Judge Harold Porter in announcing his verdict. “How could he recall, and not recall, the same events?

“I do not believe the accused, and his evidence does not raise a reasonable doubt.”

Antle was charged with theft on Jan. 26, after he walked into the Sobeys store and put the package of sleep aids in his pocket. Two minutes later, he took the beer and minutes after that, walked past the check-out and out the door.

“To be clear, this was not a case where the accused said that he had put something in his pocket, and had forgotten to pay for it. This was a case where the accused said that he had zero recollection of having been in the store on the date in question. Curiously, the accused had no problem remembering that his wife had not been with him in the store,” Porter noted.

Antle will be sentenced at a later date.