Gala man took £700 phone from shop that wasn't his

Jamie Wilkinson, 29, of Galashiels, admitted the theft of finding a £700 mobile phone and taking it from McColl’s in Gala Park on October 13.

The court heard that a 16-year-old girl had left the phone by accident in the shop, but when she returned to get it, it was no longer there.

Closed-circuit TV footage was checked, and a man later identified as Wilkinson was spotted taking it.

He claimed he thought it was his when he took it, but he now accepted the theft charge and making no attempt to find its real owner.

The court was also told there had been no recovery of the phone but Wilkinson said it was lying on a cabinet in his mother’s home in Gala Park.

Sheriff Peter Paterson reduced Wilkinson’s sentence from five months to three months for being candid about where the phone was.

He was also given another four months’ jail for damaging a door at a property in Scott Street, Galashiels, on November 17, when he was found lying on a floor at someone else’s home under the influence of alcohol.

In addition, two months of an unexpired prison sentence took his sentence up to nine months, backdated to November 20.