Online Reporter
On the night of September 21, an ambitious 31-year-old Benson Jakarasi of no fixed abode scaled a security wall in Belvedere with an ambitious plan.
Around 11.30pm, he stealthily entered the premises at 10 McIlwaine Crescent Road and tip-toed his way to the main door, which he forced open. He headed straight to the fridge, where he helped himself to five kilogrammes of meat.
However, as he was in the middle of the heist, the house owner, 58-year-old Malcolm Thorncroft, who obviously was not expecting a guest with a sudden interest in his fridge at such an unholy hour, noticed.
This, dear reader, is where the tragedy begins to reveal itself — not as a crime story, but as a comedy of errors.
Thorncroft, presumably stirred by the sound of his fridge being raided, spotted the intruder.
He quickly locked himself in his bedroom and called the police.
This clearly was a plot twist Benson had not rehearsed. Now, a sensible thief would have fled. But Benson must have decided that the evening was still young and the night still full of opportunity. Now operating on pure vibes and zero strategy, he spotted a toolbox, found the keys to Thorncroft’s Honda CRV and made his way to the garage.
As fate would have it, the detectives arrived when he was just reversing it.
A warning shot was fired.
And Benson did what any self-respecting criminal mastermind would do in that moment: He fled into one of the rooms and hid behind a couch.
A couch. Not a wardrobe. Not a ceiling. Not a secret tunnel. A couch.
We can only imagine the scene: trained detectives searching the premises, guns drawn, only to find a 31-year-old man folded behind a three-seater like a forgotten remote control.
The court, unimpressed by his creativity, sentenced him to 12 months for unlawful entry and four years for theft of a motor vehicle.
Three months were suspended on condition of good behaviour and a further month on condition of restitution of US$25.
Effective sentence: four years and eight months. All of this — for five kilogrammes of meat!
So, for his sheer commitment to making bad decisions in an increasingly spectacular fashion, for turning a fridge raid into a motor vehicle theft and for proving that the only thing he was worse at than burglary is hide-and-seek, Benson is our Mampara of the Week.
