A serial thief has been jailed after being caught with a knife as well as stealing £30 worth of meat from a shop. Henry Taroni also breached a community order he received for grabbing a woman’s bottom on a bus and he breached a suspended sentence for shoplifting.
The 29-year-old has wracked up more than 100 offences, most of which have been for theft. But he has been offered a job at his family scrap business, providing he can kick his alcohol and drug addictions, Birmingham Crown Court was told.
Theresa Hunt, defending, said: “His personal mitigation hinges around his cycle of substance misuse. He fell into cannabis use at a very young age, 13 or so. At the time he was struggling as a teenager with a diagnosis of ADHD.
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“What he desperately needs to do is break the cycle of substance and alcohol misuse. That’s his determined intention while in custody. Once achieved there really is green shoots of hope.
“He has a supportive family. He also has an uncle who has a scrap metal business and has offered him a job and he has that supportive network in place available to him once he has broken the cycle of drug misuse.”
Taroni received a community order in 2023 for committing sexual assault, the court heard. Prosecutor Ibrahim Ilyas stated he was ‘being drunk and aggressive’ on a bus in Sutton Coldfield, adding he had an interaction with a male only to ‘grab his girlfriend’s bottom’.
In May this year he was handed a 16-week jail suspended sentence for shoplifting incidents, including stealing £99 worth of chocolate and laundry items from a Co-op on a single occasion. But Taroni breached both orders by committing further crimes.
On May 29 he was caught stealing £30 worth of meat from a shop. Then two days later police arrested him on suspicion of stealing a car, only to find he was in possession of a craft knife which he claimed he had on him for work.
On Thursday, July 11 Taroni, of no fixed address, had his 16-week suspended sentence activated and was handed a further four months for his latest offences.