Son stole mum's £10,000 jewellery and fled to Dubai (From Daily Echo)
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Son stole mum's £10,000 jewellery and fled to Dubai
12:00pm Thursday 7th March 2013 in News
By John Hoskins, Court Reporter
Son stole mum's £10,000 jewellery and fled to Dubai
A MOTHER hugged her drug abusing son after he had been spared an immediate prison sentence for stealing thousands of pounds of her jewellery to fund his habit before fleeing to Dubai.
Valerie White had sat in the public gallery as she was reminded of the day she had returned from a two-week holiday with her partner to find their home had been burgled.
Eleanor Fargin, prosecuting at Winchester Crown Court, said Adam White had been staying with the couple until they left for their break in September.
But on their return, they noticed a television had been stolen from the master bedroom and several items of jewellery were also missing.
They immediately suspected it was her son as there was no forced entry to the house in Eastleigh.
When they contacted him in Dubai he denied he was responsible, but when she asked about the jewellery he made a reference to Cash Generators in Southampton.
Police went to the premises but all they could recover was a camcorder.
Ms Fargin said the value of the stolen property amounted to £10,487, with the jewellery valued at £9,600.
When White returned from the Middle East, he was arrested and admitted he had used the cash on drugs, adding he had gone to Dubai to rid himself of them.
When Ms Fargin mentioned Mrs White had made an impact statement, Judge Andrew Barnett said he had read it, commenting “She is in a very difficult position. This is a very serious matter.”
But the judge stopped short of giving White an immediate prison term, giving him an eight-month suspended sentence coupled with an order to do 150 hours of community service.
Ximena Jones, mitigating, told the court how White had begun taking cocaine at 18 and for last two years he had been taking heroin/cocaine and heroin intravenously.
“The person appearing in the dock today is a very different person from the one at the time of the offence.
A job in Dubai was set up before it took place. The main reason he went there was that he realised he had to stop taking drugs.”
White, 28, who lives in Camberley, admitted burglary.
