Court jails teenage applicant one month for cell phone theft

A magistrate’s court in Lagos on Monday sentenced a 19-year-old applicant, Oladipupo Jide, to one month in jail for stealing a mobile phone valued at N18,000.  Giving the verdict, the magistrate, Mrs O. Sule-Amzat, said the sentence would serve as a deterrent to others and advised Jide, whose address was unknown, to desist from committing […]

A magistrate’s court in Lagos on Monday sentenced a 19-year-old applicant, Oladipupo Jide, to one month in jail for stealing a mobile phone valued at N18,000.

 Giving the verdict, the magistrate, Mrs O. Sule-Amzat, said the sentence would serve as a deterrent to others and advised Jide, whose address was unknown, to desist from committing any further crime.

 The convict, who was charged with a one-count charge of theft, pleaded guilty to the charge but asked the court to temper justice with mercy, saying he committed the crime due to ignorance and poverty.

 The prosecutor, Inspector Benson Emuerhi, had told the court that a complainant reported the case at the police post at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, on August 14, 2017.

 Emuerhi said that Jide snatched the phone from the complainant, Ocheme Antonia, while she was making a call with it in the afternoon of that day.