Bank worker calls police when dim-witted burglar deposits loot mixed with glass

A MAN who ransacked a pub and stole charity cash was caught after he tried to pay coins mingled with pieces of broken glass into a bank.

Recovering drug addict Trevor Easby walked into the Lloyds branch carrying bags full of loose change taken from his local pub, a court heard. But the bank cashier became suspicious after spotting shards of glass in with the coins and dialled 999. Easby, aged 30, had spent more than five hours in The Magnet in Devonport rifling through a charity box, fruit machines and a bottle filled with coins.

Plymouth magistrates jailed him for a total of seven months after hearing he had been released from prison only a week before.

Easby, of Cornwall Beach in Devonport, admitted burgling the Albany Street pub on Wednesday.

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He took cash from a large whisky bottle, a St Luke's Hospice collecting tin and a 'lottery bonus ball' tin.

Easby also stole four bottles of spirits and other cash and coins adding up to £581.

Presiding magistrate Barry Brooking said: "You ransacked a pub and stole from a charity box and a bottle while you were on licence."

Eoin McCarthy, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the estimated value of the cash and property stolen was just over £1,000.

He said Easby broke into the front door of the pub only 11 minutes after it closed and was locked up for the night.

Mr McCarthy added he was seen for five and a half hours on CCTV 'fairly systematically' breaking into fruit machines and taking bottles of spirits.

He said he was seen coming and going into the pub with his ill-gotten gains, some of which were later found at his home nearby.

Mr McCarthy said: "Later that day police attended Lloyds bank where the defendant had tried to cash in a number of bags of loose change, amongst which was broken glass."

Alan Harris, for Easby, said he was a recovering addict who had been receiving a prescription for the heroin substitute methadone for some time.

He added: "I have asked the defendant whether he was motivated by poor habits or he desperately wanted the cash and he cannot really answer that."

Easby was jailed for six months for burglary, plus four weeks for his previous offence of handling stolen goods because he had breached the licence period.