A 35-year-old man who stole a cellphone out of a woman’s purse at a Burnaby mall food court in January has been sentenced to one day in jail and banned from the mall during one year of probation.
A woman was having a bite to eat with a friend at the Metropolis at Metrotown Chipotle Mexican Grill at about 2 p.m. on Jan. 30, according to facts presented in Vancouver provincial court Tuesday.
When they got up to refill their drinks, they left their purses at the table and noticed a man “loitering around the table,” according to Crown prosecutor Rosanne Sinclair.
About 20 minutes later, the woman noticed her phone was missing out of her purse, Sinclair said.
Using a GPS phone tracker, the woman tracked it to a Vancouver Safeway on Gore Avenue and called police.
Officers found 35-year-old Sandeep Singh, the man from the mall, inside the store talking on the stolen phone.
Singh, of no fixed address, was arrested and charged with theft under $5,000.
Singh’s lawyer Tim Ochitwa and Sinclair both called for a one-day jail sentence and a year of probation, including a ban on contacting the owner of the stolen phone and going to the mall.
Sinclair said Singh – who was already serving a 76-day jail sentence for breaching probation on earlier convictions for uttering threats, sexual assault and indecent acts in a public place– deserved credit for pleading guilty to the theft, but she said his extensive criminal record was an aggravating factor.
Ochitwa said Singh struggles with a “myriad” of mental health issues and “does what he can to get by.”
“(He) is more somebody who is an opportunist rather than anybody who puts any planning into any of his crimes,” Ochitwa said.
After handing down his sentence, B.C. provincial court Judge David St. Pierre encouraged Singh to take stock and look over his criminal record.
“Sometimes it’s a bit of an eye-opener for folks just to sit down and look at their own record,” St. Pierre said. “You’d see as a 35-year-old man now that it’s not a great record. But the thing about the past is it doesn’t always have to define the future.”
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