News / Botched break in
A BOTCHED break in at a Lerwick fuel station landed two young men in the dock at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Thursday.
Eighteen year old North African Anas Nfaou, of 2a Holmsgarth Brae, Lerwick, appeared from custody after he was remanded earlier this week on charges of assault and breaching the peace, when it was revealed he was in Britain illegally.
His 20 year old accomplice Eduinas Rimkus, of 13 Haldane Burgess Crescent, Lerwick, joined Nfaou in pleading guilty to the break in, but told the court through an interpreter that he had been too drunk to remember much of the incident.
However procurator fiscal Duncan Mackenzie said the raid on Grantfield Garage on the night of 2 January was no spontaneous drunken act, saying the two young men had donned hoods and latex gloves before using metal bars to smash through a large plate glass window.
A neighbour heard the sound of smashing glass and called the police, who caught the pair red handed as they tried to escape with cigarettes, tobacco, matches and lighters worth more than £1,000.
Sentence was adjourned until 21 February for social work background reports into the two men.
Rimkus was released on bail, but Nfaou was led back to the cells after Sheriff Philip Mann dismissed an argument from defence agent Tommy Allan that he should be allowed his freedom.
The day before he is sentenced, Nfaou will be back in the court for a trial after he denied charges of punching two men, injuring one of them, and brandishing a bottle at his home.
Joining him in the dock that day will be 18 year old Zoe Drysdale, who gave a bail address at Solheim Guest House, on Lerwick’s King Harald Street, when she appeared on a charge of racially aggravated assault.
Drysdale has yet to make a plea regarding the accusation that she called Nfaou “a fucking Paki” and threw a bottle at him.
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