Teens stole from chocolate fountain business (From Salisbury Journal)

Teens stole from chocolate fountain business

4:35pm Tuesday 7th February 2012 in Headlines

AN Amesbury businessman is hoping justice will be sweet after two teenagers pleaded guilty to stealing from his chocolate fountain business.

Matthew Roose runs Chocolate Fountain Hire and had been storing a £600 Honda generator and £200 of pick and mix sweets in a rented garage in Lyndhurst Road, Amesbury. He locked up the garage on January 15 and when he returned on January 19 he discovered the door had been forced open and the generator and sweets were gone.

Liam Pearson, 18, of Lyndhurst Road, and a 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to burglary at Salisbury Magistrates Court on Tuesday.

Mr Roose said: “I was really hacked off at the time. I got around it, but it was a pain in the neck, I had to replace all the sweets and I haven’t got the generator back yet. It hasn’t caused too many problems for the business because there’s another generator but had it been in the middle of the summer it would have been a different story.

“The police were so fantastic. The investigation people came out that evening and they recovered the stuff within 24 hours. Everything can be replaced but it’s the annoyance factor.”

The magistrates asked for a pre-sentence report to be prepared on Pearson before sentencing on March 7 and the 17-year-old is due to be sentenced in youth court today.

Christopher Keith Howell, 47, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods, after admitting helping to move the generator when he knew it had been stolen, and eating some of the sweets. He was fined £100 and ordered to pay £100 costs.