A shoplifter who used a joint of meat to assault a store manager has been jailed.
Forty-five-year-old Desmond Stephens pleaded guilty to stealing meat worth £40 from a shop in Long Sutton and a charge of assault by beating when he appeared at Boston Magistrates’ Court last Wednesday (April 17).
His case was deferred to Peterborough Magistrates’ Court for sentencing on Friday (April 19) to be heard alongside another charge.
“The defendant attended the Spar store where the manager was watching the CCTV cameras,” prosecutor Kerry Close told Boston magistrates.
“He noticed Mr Stephens put a piece of meat inside his jacket.”
When the store manager arrived at the meat aisle to ask Stephens to pay for the concealed meat the altercation began.
“Mr Stephens becomes aggressive and throws the joint at him (the store manager) and it bounces off his head,” Mrs Close continued.
“Mr Stephens then headbutts the store manager. He says he feels immediate pain but there was no injury from the headbutt.
“The store manager threw punches back at Mr Stephens before he was ejected from the store.”
The incidents occurred on January 29 of this year but Stephens, of Grounds Avenue, March, Cambridgeshire, wasn’t arrested until April 2 when facial recognition was used to identify him.
In police interview the defendant argued he was planning to pay for the meat.
Mrs Close told the Stephens was currently under a suspended sentence imposed for four shop thefts in November last year.
For this crime, Peterborough magistrates sentenced Stephens to prison for a period of two weeks.
