Market Rasen lobster thief is jailed

Charles Pinchbeck, of King Street in Market Rasen, admitted stealing 10 boxes of luxury shell fish, worth £120, from Iceland in Boston.

Magistrates heard that on September 5, Pinchbeck had been given a six-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, for theft - and then on October 9 he stole the lobster.

Pinchbeck was chased by staff and found hiding in the town’s Central Park where he shouted the word ‘needle’ before being arrested by police.

Barbara Newman, for the Probation Service, said that as well as his suspended prison sentence, Pinchbeck was also on a community order, imposed in March, for theft.

She said Pinchbeck stole to get money to buy drugs and that it had been calculated the likelihood of his re-offending within a year was 72 per cent.

She told magistrates Pinchbeck was living in supported accommodation he would lose if he was sent to prison.

Mitigating, Michael Alexander said Pinchbeck was a man with a long standing drug problem and that before being provided with accommodation in Market Rasen, he had been homeless in the Boston area and living hand to mouth with no ability to cope with his life.

Mr Alexander said Pinchbeck had been able to stop using drugs since moving to Market Rasen and that he had stolen the lobster to sell to buy food, not drugs.

Magistrates said it would ‘not be unjust’ to impose the suspended prison sentence and ordered Pinchbeck serve five weeks of this, and a further four weeks consecutively for the theft of the lobster.