Two robberies in quick succession due to victims’ negligence
The defendant who was accused of the two robberies works from time to time in Monaco © Monaco Tribune
She allegedly committed the thefts while under the influence of alcohol.
The Principality’s excellent safety reputation sometimes makes residents and workers forget to take precautions. It was child’s play to rob two men in March this year.
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The first one had left the keys to his business in a little hole outside. Unfortunately, the defendant knew of the ‘hiding’ place and the keys were quite visible. The second, a newspaper delivery man, had left the keys in the ignition of his moped while he made a delivery. The defendant, who was responsible for both thefts, took advantage of the opportunity to make off with the vehicle.
Straight in and out for the restaurant robbery
On the morning of March 19, the little restaurant on the boulevard du Jardin Exotique was still closed. However, someone got in, without breaking and entering, along with two dogs, helped themselves to what was in the cash register, five beers and two bottles of champagne. Then left as quietly as they had gone in. It was only when the owner noticed the float was missing from his till, that he took a look at the security camera footage.
The individual’s face could not be seen, but the investigating officers’ enquiries led them to a woman who had previously worked as a delivery driver for the restaurant. When questioned, she admitted the charges and explained that she drank the alcohol right after the theft with a friend, the owner of the two dogs she was walking.
Not only were the keys in plain sight, the defendant knew where they were. The owner was in the habit of leaving the keys where his employees could find them “outside, in a hole in a glass door where they can be seen,” the presiding magistrate pointed out when reading the charges.
A scooter stolen in a flash
The newspaper delivery man was doing his usual rounds in Monaco. But there was nothing usual about what happened on March 20. He stopped his moped on the rue Grimaldi for a few moments to make a delivery but left the key in the ignition, as is his custom in the Principality. A few seconds later, he heard the moped start up and drive off.
Like a scene out of a film, the newspaper delivery driver ran after the moped, shouting “stop thief!” The thief panicked and suddenly abandoned the moped a few metres on, throwing it down violently, and causing damage to the vehicle.
Enter Lady Luck. A Monegasque policeman who was about to go on duty witnessed the entire scene and arrested the thief on the spot.
During the hearing, the driver explained that [he] left the keys on the moped because [he was] in Monaco,” the idea would never cross his mind in Nice or Cannes where he jokingly explained he would have to “remove the keys or even get out the chains and Dobermans.”
Probable addiction issues
The accused, who admitted the charges, said she didn’t “know why [she] did it.” She explained to the police that she was“penniless, unable to work, and addicted to alcohol.”
Her personal circumstances do not excuse but perhaps explain the troubled woman’s actions. The prosecutor in his summing up described her as “a young drug addict who struggles to fit in. I think she has health and addiction issues.”
She has already been convicted in France for drug use and criminal damage. Of no fixed abode, the young woman did not attend the court hearing. She was found guilty and received a suspended sentence of one month.
The only victim in the courtroom, the newspaper delivery man, could not file a civil suit and ask for the defendant to reimburse the cost of repairing the moped for lack of “written insurance details, estimates or invoices.”