An unemployed man was sentenced by the Sessions Court to three years’ imprisonment and one stroke of the rotan after pleading guilty to breaking into a restaurant and stealing cash and a mobile phone.
M. Yugendran, 33, a father of two, admitted to committing the offence at an Indian restaurant in Titiwangsa Sentral after cutting off the premises’ padlock at around 10am on Jan 23.
The court heard that he then forced open the cash register and stole RM500 in cash as well as a mobile phone from the cashier’s counter.
Yugendran also acknowledged that he was the individual captured on the restaurant’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage during the incident.
The restaurant owner, a 51-year-old woman, later discovered the break-in and lodged a police report, estimating total losses at about RM1,000.
The charge, framed under Section 457 of the Penal Code, carries a jail term of between five and 14 years and a fine upon conviction.
Judge Dr Azrol Abdullah ordered the accused to serve his prison sentence starting from the date of his arrest on June 22.
In mitigation, Yugendran, who was unrepresented, pleaded for a lighter sentence, saying he is a divorcee and that his two children, aged nine and 10, are currently under the care of his mother.
He also informed the court that he had been unemployed prior to his arrest.
However, deputy public prosecutor Mohamad Ikhwan Mohd Nasir requested a proportionate sentence as a deterrent against similar offences.
