Hotel worker stole £1,500 projector to fix and sell on Facebook

A hotel worker stole a digital projector from a cupboard at the city centre's Grand Hotel, fixed it and tried to sell it on Facebook. Kevin Scattergood, 51, was one of only a few members of staff at the Granby Street hotel who had keys to the storage cupboard and he had spotted the Optoma Projector sitting in a broken box, gathering dust.

He decided to take it home, fix it up and try to sell it. But the management at the hotel, owned by Ramada Jarvis, noticed the item, worth £1,500, was gone and launched an investigation. The manager of the hotel conference team was on holiday at the time of the theft, in March this year, meaning Scattergood, of Higham Way, Burbage, near Hinckley, was the prime suspect.

The hotel investigation found he was selling the same item on Facebook Marketplace. He was interviewed but denied the projector he was selling on Facebook was the same one. He claimed he had bought it on eBay because he was thinking about hosting a disco.

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However, Leicestershire Police got involved and the projector was seized. Officers found the serial number on the Optoma projector matched that of the stolen one. Scattergood appeared at Leicester Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, June 26, and admitted theft by employee.

But David Coyle, representing Scattergood, said his client did not think the projector would be missed and, while the projector was broken when he took it, it was fixed when they got it back from the police.

He said: "He noticed the projector had not been working for a long time and hadn't been used. It was collecting dust on the floor at the back of a cupboard in a broken box.

"He thought he would take it and see if he could fix it. He didn't think the matter through. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to take it. He lost his job, which he had enjoyed."

Gareth Roberts, the chairman of the bench, told Scattergood: "We realise you have made a catastrophic error and the loss of you good character is the main punishment. Scattergood was fined £120 and ordered to pay £85 court costs and a £48 victim surcharge.