Freed on bail, then stole TV

A serial shoplifter stole a television worth almost £300 from a city supermarket within hours of being freed on a bail order from Perth Sheriff Court.

Ross Frankowski’s lengthy record for crimes of dishonesty led to him being jailed for 10 months when he appeared for sentence.

A co-accused, Craig Burden (30), of Dunnock Park, Perth, was ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work within the next nine months.

He will also be supervised for 12 months and have to undertake drug treatment within that time.

They both admitted stealing a total of three televisions from Asda in Perth’s Dunkeld Road on January 21 and 23 this year.

Both were subject to bail orders at the time.

Burden further pled guilty to helping himself to a quantity of alcohol from Tesco’s Crieff Road store on January 13.

Depute fiscal Matthew Kerr said the two TV sets in the first charge were valued at £278 and in the second £349. All of the sets were recovered after both men were caught on closed circuit television.

The alcohol was worth £103 and it wasn’t traced.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted that Frankowski had 19 convictions for theft and he had been released on one of his bail orders on January 21.

He added:“Within hours you were popping into Asda to see what televisions were on offer.”

His jail term was backdated to January 24 when he was remanded.

Imposing the unpaid work in respect of Burden, the sheriff said he took into account the time he had spent on remand and he had only two convictions for theft.