A thief who stole a bucket hat from a charity shop told police ‘Bilbo Baggins was a trained burglar’.
Garry Pitt, 66, invoked the main character of JRR Tolkien’s classic fantasy novel The Hobbit after he was caught on CCTV stealing the hat from the Ani-Mel Haven charity shop in Workington, Cumbria.
He was ordered to pay £384 after being found guilty of the theft at Workington Magistrates’ Court.
Prosecutors said Pitt, who denied the theft, took the blue bucket hat from a mannequin, put it on his head and then left without paying on November 28 last year.
Eagle-eyed cops reviewed CCTV of the theft and spotted Pitt sitting inside their own police station.
Pitt was sat waiting for an unrelated police appointment when officers approached him and asked him about the theft.
He handed over the hat and said ‘there was nobody about’, the court heard.
Police bodycam footage was played to the court, in which Pitt could be heard telling the officer: ‘Bilbo Baggins was a trained burglar, did you know that?’
Speaking in his own defence, Pitt said he had forgotten the hat was on his head when he walked out of the shop, only realising when he was on the way to his police appointment.
Prosecutor Pamela Fee asked Pitt, who was wearing leg braces, why he didn’t return as soon as he realised his supposed mistake.
He responded: ‘I couldn’t go all the way back. I’m on my way to the police station.
‘I didn’t know I had committed a crime. As far as I knew, it was just a hat.
‘If I had got to the police station and nobody had said anything, I would have probably gone back to the shop.
‘I couldn’t have walked back because of my injuries.’
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