Clitheroe crooks on holiday cost hotel £14,922
3:41pm Friday 19th October 2012 in News By Andrew Bellard, Court reporter
Clitheroe crooks on holiday cost hotel £14,922
TWO Clitheroe teenagers who went on a ‘holiday’ to Cornwall ended up spending time in Exeter prison.
Blackburn magistrates heard the pair stole more than £1,500 from the safe of the hotel where they had been staying and then left in the dead of night without paying their £1,922 bill.
And they also took a set of master keys which resulted in the hotel having to pay £11,500 to have every lock on the premises replaced.
Wesley Cyril Russell, 18, of George Street, and Liam Nuttall, 18, of De Lacy Street, pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary at the Sandy Lodge Hotel, Newquay, making off without payment and using criminal obtained cash.
Russell was sentenced to community supervision for 18 months and ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.
Nuttall was made subject to community supervision for 18 months, ordered to do 120 hours unpaid work and pay £1,000 compensation.
Russell also pleaded guilty to theft of a Blackberry phone, wallet and cash.
The court heard the duo stayed at the Sandy Lodge for 10 days.
During that time on repeated visits to reception to get change for the pool table Russell managed to build up the combination for the safe.
Armed with the combination the pair sneaked down at 1am and took cash and the master keys from the safe and £220 from behind the bar.
They returned to their room and then left via the fire escape before getting a taxi. They stayed at two other hotels using money they had stolen to pay their bill.
Parveen Akhtar, prosecuting, said the theft of the phone, wallet and cash had happened while the owner was ‘skinny dipping’ with friends in the early hours of the morning and had left his clothes on the beach with Russell.
