PETALING JAYA: A clerk was sentenced to a day in jail and fined RM100 by a Magistrate’s Court here after she pleaded guilty to stealing 11 food items from a supermarket in Puchong last week.
Leong Yew Wai, 56, stole the items worth RM88.05 found in her bag she was carrying.
She committed the offence at the Tesco Extra store about 3.30pm on Dec 5.
In mitigation, her lawyer, A Srimurugan, urged magistrate Mohamad Ikhwan Mohd Nasir to bind Leong over without recording a conviction as allowed under Section 173A of the Criminal Procedure Code.
“It is undesirable for a first-time offender to be sent to jail for a minor offence,” he said, adding that she was also prepared to pay compensation to the prosecution.
He said that her conduct was an “error of judgment”.
Ikhwan then sentenced Leong to jail and a fine.
The offence for theft carries a jail term of up to 10 years or fine, or both.
A relative paid the fine. Srimurugan said the accused would be taken to a prison and freed just before midnight.
Facts of the case revealed a security officer had stopped her after she left the payment counter.
Police recorded her statement and she was freed on police bail, but Leong was asked to appear before a magistrate today.