A woman who stole a bus driver's phone while it was charging has been sentenced to 80 hours of community service.
The driver had plugged his Samsung phone in to charge before starting his route on 22 February.
He had left it charging behind his seat, next to the fold-up seats which are used to make space for wheelchair users and people with prams. He then left the terminus and drove towards the Tourist Information Centre, where he picked up Carla Romeril, 39.
The driver noticed his phone was still charging when Romeril sat in one of the folding seats. When a person with a pushchair got on the bus, the defendant moved out of the way and was seen to move the phone.
Later on, when he reached L'Ancresse, the driver stopped to check whether his phone had finished charging, however, it was no longer there.
Pictured: The defendant was picked up by the bus near the Tourist Information Centre.
Romeril wasn't arrested for the offence until 17 April, when she was brought to Guernsey Police's attention for another matter. Officers searched her house and found the phone, matching the bus driver's description. She had performed a factory reset on it which had wiped all of his data.
During her interview, the defendant said she had used that bus route regularly, but claimed the phone was hers and that she had owned it for a year. However, in a later interview with officers, she said she didn't want to waste anybody's time and admitted to taking the mobile.
Romeril explained how she didn't have a phone at the time and said it was the first "proper phone" she had used in a long time. She wasn't aware of who it belonged to.
The defendant told officers she would be devastated if someone had taken her property and said she wanted to apologise to the driver.
Pictured: The defendant was questioned at the police station.
On sentencing, Judge Gary Perry gave Romeril credit for her early guilty pleas, but noted that she "wasn't honest with the police from the start".
She has appeared before Guernsey's courts multiple times and has a number of previous convictions.
"You are not of previous good character," Judge Perry told her. "You need to understand the more often you appear before the court, the less likely it is you'll receive a non-custodial option."
However, Romeril did avoid prison on this occasion and was given a community service order instead.
Pictured top: The Samsung phone was stolen from a Guernsey bus.
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