Bilston workers caught on CCTV stealing £2k of clothes

Adam Dekowski and Shaun Harrison were working for family-run JMP Wilcox, in Bilston, when they snatched four bags of clothes from a conveyor belt.

The clothes, worth £2,400, would normally be sold on abroad at a rate of £6 per 1kg by the textile reclaiming business on Beldray Road.

The pair were caught on CCTV, Wolverhampton Magistrates Court was told.

They are no longer employed at the company.

Mrs Kelly Crowe, prosecuting, said: "The works manager saw the defendants on CCTV stealing the material from the conveyor belt.

"The items were later loaded into a van and taken back to Harrison's address. They were not recovered."

Mr Lee Preston, defending Dekowski, of Leslie Rise, Oldbury, highlighted his client's guilty plea to two charges of theft by employee, one for clothing valued at £2,400 on February 12 and another charge on February 4 including stealing clothing of an unknown value.

He said: "He was in a lot of debt made worse by this ill-minded scheme, for which he lost his job."

Harrison, of Bloomfield Road, Tipton, who also pleaded guilty to the same charges at an earlier hearing, represented himself in court but did not offer any mitigation.

Harrison, who the court heard was a man of previous good character, was made subject to a 12-month community order with a single requirement to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

Meanwhile Dekowski, of Leslie Rise, Oldbury, was given a 12-month community order including the requirement to attend supervision as well as complete 150 hours of unpaid work.

Both Dekowski, aged 30, and Harrison, aged 28, were also ordered to pay £500 to their old employer – which specialises in the reclamation, processing and export of clothing to Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia – as compensation.

They were also ordered to pay a £60 victim surcharge and £85 prosecution costs.