Yahoo News Charity shop thief skipped bail and spent five years living in Turkey
A woman who stole thousands of pounds from a cancer charity shop skipped bail and fled to Turkey where she spent the next five and a half years. Lorreine Kucuk was due to be sentenced for the theft in November 2018 but left the UK after being granted bail. She only returned to the jurisdiction last month.
Sending the 48-year-old to prison for breaching her bail, a judge at Swansea Crown Court said the breach was "so egregious" that only immediate custody was appropriate. However the judge adjourned sentencing for the charity shop theft until the defendant has served her bail offence sentence and indicated he was "strongly minded" to impose a suspended sentence for that matter.
The theft offence occurred at the Cancer Research UK shop in Tenby, Pembrokeshire, in 2018 and the defendant had been the manager of the store. She was charged with stealing £5,000 from the shop and pleaded guilty and the matter was listed for sentence at Swansea Crown Court on November 8, 2018. Dean Pulling, prosecuting, said Kucuk failed to attend that hearing and the court was informed she was in fact in Turkey where she had apparently been involved in a road traffic accident. He said a warrant was issued for the defendant's arrest and the warrant was executed on March 24 this year – five and a half years later – when the defendant returned to the UK and surrendered herself. Mr Pulling said the defendant had deliberately absconded and been living in Turkey during her time out of the jurisdiction.
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Stuart John, for Kucuk, said the defendant's passport had expired while she was in Turkey and she had spent the last four years in the country without one. He said living in Tukey with the theft proceedings hanging over her had been "something of a purgatory" for his client who had then managed to return to the UK with the help of friends and the British embassy. The advocate said being held in prison for the last three weeks had been "extremely cathartic" for the defendant who had "embraced her time in custody" and he said in his submission there was a realistic prospect of rehabilitation for Kucuk in the long term when it came to the theft matters.
Judge Paul Thomas KC told Kucuk the theft offence was "particularly mean" and involved a breach of trust and he said the defendant had then gone on to deliberately abscond and go to Turkey where she had remained for five and a half years. He said the breach of bail was "so egregious" only a term of immediate custody was appropriate but said he was going to take the unusual step of adjourning the theft sentence until after the defendant had served the bail sentence at which point he would be "strongly minded" to impose a suspended sentence for theft.
Lorreine Kucuk, formerly of Upper Frog Street, Tenby, Pembrokeshire, was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison for breach of bail. Defendants ordinarily serve up to half their sentences in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community but the court heard Kucuk has already spent three weeks in custody and upon her release in two weeks time she will be remanded into custody until May 10 when she will be sentenced for the theft matter.
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