When he saw a man next to him whom he thought was dead, an inmate at HMP Dodds took the opportunity to steal the man’s cell phone.
As it turned out, though, the man only had a seizure and the phone belonged to the man’s daughter, who had given t to him so she could contact him.
For stealing the phone, Andrew Sylvester Moore, 42, will have to spend an additional three months in prison.
It means that Moore, who had nine months remaining on his current sentence, will now serve 12.
When he appeared in the District “A” Magistrates’ Court yesterday, Moore pleaded guilty to stealing a $200 cell phone belonging to Shardae Boyce sometime between December 20 and 22, 2017.
Prosecutor Sergeant Theodore McClean told the court that Boyce’s father was hospitalised at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Ward A1.
He was given the phone by his daughter so she could communicate with him. When she tried to contact him on December 22, she did not hear him.
Moore, who was at the hospital receiving treatment, was situated next to the girl’s father.
Concerned, Boyce went to the hospital to see her father, but was told that he had suffered a seizure and was incoherent.
Moore used the opportunity to steal the phone and conceal it in his bag, which contained his prison clothes.
After he was discharged from the QEH, he was searched at the gate of the prison and the phone was found in his bag.
When asked by Magistrate Douglas Frederick why he stole the phone, Moore said he thought the man was dead.
“The man dead. He done dead,” he said, while revealing that he was HIV-positive.
“You HIV-positive and still stealing?” the surprised looking magistrate asked him.
Magistrate Frederick sentenced him to three months to run consecutively to the nine months he has remaining. (RB)