Phone thief caught on CCTV

Dale Michael Catton, 25, of Gateford Glade, admitted stealing the Samsung Galaxy S5 mobile phone on October 23 last year.

The court heard Catton was arrested shortly after the victim discovered the theft by watching CCTV at the restaurant.

The phone was recovered but the sim card was missing.

Richard Jepson, mitigating, said: “He had been out with his partner and had had a considerable amount to drink.”

He said that Catton’s phone was similar to the victim’s, which was next to Catton’s cigarettes on the restaurant table.

Catton is in breach of a community order imposed in February last year and April in 2014, Mr Jepson said, neither of which was for dishonesty.

Mr Jepson said Catton has been in work for the past two months as a steam cleaner and had been offered a full time contract if he wasn’t sent to prison.

Magistrates sent him to Nottingham Crown Court on February 10 for sentencing because the community orders were breached, and a six month suspended sentence had been re-activated.