Burglar caught after leaving bail sheets at crime scene

Sunday 20 October 2024

A burglar who acted as a lookout while his associate broke into a St Helier pub was caught because his bail sheet – complete with his name and signature on it – for a different offence was left in the pub.

Gavin Robert Ferguson (52), who has more than 100 previous convictions, was sentenced by the Royal Court to three years’ imprisonment for breaking and entering and larceny, breaking and entering with intent to commit a crime, and malicious damage.

The Gloster Arms, on Seaton Place, was broken into in September, and machines were found destroyed.

The publican’s partner, who lives in the flat above the premises, said he had heard loud noises and saw a person in the doorway to his living room. When the person fled the building, he started to run after them until he heard the door shut.

A small table had been used to smash the fruit machine, and the float – which contained a minimum of £350 – was stolen, Crown Advocate Lauren Taylor, prosecuting, said.

The fruit machine was worth around £750. The pool table and jukebox were also broken, though the publican said she did not charge customers to use the former and added: “My regulars who play pool would know that it would be empty.”

She added that the jukebox hadn’t worked in years and had been “just for show”.

The thrift book and tills were intact, Crown Advocate Taylor said.

A crime scene investigator found that the fruit machine had “tool marks... allowing access to where any money boxes would be located”, Crown Advocate Taylor said.

A fork was found and, underneath the upturned table, two police bail forms in Ferguson’s name.

The forms were later shown to bear Ferguson’s fingerprints and the fork was found to hold his DNA.

The pool table’s ball dispenser had been forced open and the flat’s lock had been forced open. A member of the public highlighted a knife in a doorway two doors along, which was bent, “consistent with being used to prize something open”.

Ferguson, when he pleaded guilty, did so on the basis that he had been a lookout for an accomplice, who had used his backpack to store the stolen money.

Advocate Nicholas Mière, defending, said the defendant had “sought to explain himself and apologise” to the victims.

“He is embarrassed and ashamed. He is extremely sorry that he had any role to play in the offences at all,” he said.

“He wants to make amends and, realistically, I would say he has done what he can.”

Ferguson had offered compensation and written a letter of apology.

Delivering the sentence, the Deputy Bailiff, Robert MacRae, referred to this letter and said: “As you say, at your age, you should have known better than to involve
yourself in this sort of serious criminal offending.

“The court will always treat offences of breaking and entering into domestic premises as grave offences.”

He sentenced Ferguson to a total of three years’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay £150 – the amount of cash he had on him when he was arrested – in compensation.

The Jurats sitting were David Gareth Hughes and Andrew Lawrence Cornish