Sascha Wil­son

Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton yes­ter­day de­scribed as a thief, a man who claimed to be a sal­vage op­er­a­tor and sent him to jail for 12 months for steal­ing $27,000 worth of steel pipes. Baldeo Lal­lan, 32, and his rel­a­tives broke down in tears af­ter the sen­tence was im­posed on him in the San Fer­nan­do First Mag­is­trates' Court. The Clax­ton Bay fa­ther of three plead­ed guilty to steal­ing 15 lengths of pipe from Tru­man Lochan­dass, own­er of Stack House Su­per­mar­ket.

Lochan­dass had left the steel pipes in an open area on his land at Ku­mar Vil­lage, Williamsville. Court Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Gor­don Ma­haraj said Lochan­dass dis­cov­ered the pipes miss­ing on Ju­ly 19. In­quiries by PC See­war­son Noy­an of the Gas­par­il­lo po­lice led him to a scrap yard in Clax­ton Bay where he found the stolen items in the tray of a red Maz­da truck. Lal­lan's at­tor­ney, Ains­ley Lucky, said his client was a sal­vage op­er­a­tor who col­lect­ed steel and sold it.