Two Polish men who made off from Dunnes Stores with a crate of beer each have appeared before Mullingar District Court charged with theft.
Tomasz Balik (41 ), 8 Grove Street, Mullingar and Grzegorz Watroba (23 ), 99 College Hill were seen leaving the Harbour Place outlet at 5.10pm on September 5 carrying a box of Miller beer each.
The men were identified from still and video images and Balik was arrested at 6pm at Grove Street, Mullingar District Court heard last week.
He was highly intoxicated and the box was half empty.
Watroba’s box was also half empty when gardaí found him, but he did pay for the beer in full. He has no previous convictions for theft but was convicted in Mullingar in May last year for drunkenness.
Balik was given a six month sentence for theft at in September 2009 and was also convicted of drunkenness.
Mr Louis Kiernan said Balik is a 41-year-old single man with a child in Poland. He has been here for three years but has been out of work for a while. He wanted to apologise for the theft and was happy to repay the money if given a couple of weeks, the court heard.
He was fined €250 and following intervention by Ms Patricia Cronin, Watroba was given the benefit of the Probation Act.
