'Desperate' man stole money to pay drugs debt

9:56am Thursday 30th October 2008

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A 28-year-old man stole from his employers to pay off a drugs debt, a court has heard.

Magistrates in Haverfordwest were told that Marc Gerald Brummitt had moved to the area to get away from ‘certain people’ to whom he owed money.

When they caught up with him he stole ‘in an act of desperation’ to pay them back, the court heard.

“These people aren’t high street banks, they have other ways of dealing with things,” said defence solicitor Sean Dyer.

Brummitt was an employee at BetFred, High Street, Haverfordwest, and on the night of October 2 he had been left in charge.

Prosecuting, Laura Leavesley said the £6,240 left in the safe the previous night had disappeared, as had the defendant.

She said that when Brummitt later handed himself in to Haverfordwest police station, he told officers that ‘he had stolen the money to pay off a drugs debt.’ Mr Dyer, asking for leniency, claimed the theft was neither premeditated nor planned.

“When it was realised that the money was stolen there would only have been one person in the picture and that was Mr Brummitt,” he said. “This was an act of desperation.”

Brummitt, of 9 Harbour Way, Hakin, entered a guilty plea to the theft and to two separate charges of fraud by misrepresentation, after indicating in two job applications, in May and July, that he had no previous convictions.

The prosecution told the court that Brummitt actually had an extensive list of previous convictions.

Mr Dyer said the defendant had been trying to earn an honest living: “He was trying to make a fresh start,” he said.

Brummitt was granted conditional bail until sentencing at Swansea Crown