Man admits defrauding Swaffham supermarket with reduced price labels

A shopper who used old reduced price stickers to scan items at a self-service supermarket till committed about £800 of fraud.

Robert Byrne, 36, was found to have committed the act at Asda on three occasions but asked for 41 other similar offences to be taken into account.

Lynn magistrates heard on Monday that Byrne, 36, was not short of money but did it for a “buzz”.

Prosecuting, Nicola Pope said security officers at the store in Swaffham became suspicious of scanning activity at one particular till and identified Byrne as the customer in question.

Police attended his home in Meadow End, Foxes Meadow, Castle Acre, and found a bank card used in the transactions and, in his wallet, some Asda labels stuck on pieces of card.

Miss Pope said: “He said in interview that he was scanning the reduced dairy items. He was ‘trying his luck’.”

He told officers he had not done anything like it since because he was so ashamed of acting in that way while a child was with him. The court was told that the child was unaware of what Byrne was doing.

Byrne pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation on June 12 and July 26. The other offences took place between January and May this year.

Mitigating, solicitor Ruth Johnson said Byrne was not doing it through a lack of means.

She said: “He doesn’t have any vices – he doesn’t smoke, drink or gamble. It gave him a buzz.

“Sometimes he would have bread and milk and he would still put a reduced sticker through, so sometimes it was a matter of pence.”

Miss Johnson said her client, a sales administrator, felt a level of shame and humiliation that was a disincentive to do anything similar again.

For each of the three offences, whose total value approximately £60, Byrne was given 150 hours’ unpaid work, to run concurrently.

He was also ordered to pay £800 compensation, £85 costs and an £85 victim surcharge.