A Dei-Dei Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, has sentenced a 22-year-old motorcyclist, Aron Sunday, to 10 months in a correctional centre for stealing property worth N700,000.
Sunday, a resident of Dutse Jabu in Abuja, was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to the three-count charge of criminal trespass, house breaking and theft preferred against him.
The judge, Saminu Suleiman, however, gave the convict an option of payment of N40,000 fine, and ordered him to pay N700,000 to the complainant.
The judge cautioned the convict to be of good behaviour and desist from committing crime after serving his jail term.
He said the punishment would have been heavier if the convict had not saved the court the rigour of protracted prosecution.
Earlier, the prosecution counsel, Chinedu Ogada, informed the court that the complainant, Fagbemi Peter and Yemi Ayeni, both of Dutse Jabu, Abuja, reported the matter at Dutse Alhaji Police Station on Nov. 12.
According to him, on the same date about 4:00 am, the convict criminally trespassed into the complainant’s compound by jumping over the fence and broke into his bedroom through the ceiling, but was caught.
He noted that the defendant had broken into the complainant’s house on two previous occasions and made away with his saving box containing N300,000, irons, electric wires, electric socket, pumping machine and wall light, all valued at N700 000.
The prosecutor said that some time later in October, the convict and others now at large also criminally went to Ayeni’s shop and stole her Tecno pop7 phone and a purse containing N120,000.
According to the prosecutor, the convict confessed to the crime during police interrogation and investigation.
The offences violated sections 348 and 288 of the Penal Code.
