Bristol magistrates’ court denies theft conviction over employer’s drill taken after closing

The Magistrates’ court in Bristol denied the Crown’s request to convict Callum Reeves of theft and impose a proportionate sentence for taking his employer’s cordless drill after closing. The court held that, although Reeves accepted taking the drill, the Crown had not proved that he acted dishonestly.

Reeves maintained that he genuinely believed he had permission to borrow the drill overnight. The court did not find that permission had been granted, but concluded that the evidence left his understanding of permission unresolved.

No sentence, payment, compensation or other monetary relief was ordered. The judgment confined the outcome to the evidence presented at the hearing.

The court distinguished proof of taking the drill from proof of dishonesty. Under the supplied criminal rules, the Crown had to support each required element with reliable evidence; Reeves was not required to prove permission or his innocence.

A screenshot of Reeves’s message to a colleague confirmed deliberate removal and an intention to return the drill the next morning. The colleague’s response was ambiguous: it neither clearly authorised the borrowing nor rejected the plan. Repeated copies of that screenshot did not amount to independent corroboration.

Nia Barlow, who usually approved equipment loans, testified that she had not approved this removal. However, she could not say whether she had been absent that day, acknowledged that supervisors sometimes handled requests during her absence, and could not exclude approval by a supervisor.

Barlow also could not identify the people in the messages. Her evidence therefore established her own lack of approval, but not that nobody else had authorised the removal or what Reeves believed.

The Crown’s references to Barlow’s signed statement carried no evidentiary weight because the statement was not produced. Its assertion that she had been present that day was likewise not established by her testimony. The court considered an inference of dishonesty possible, but insufficient given the unidentified colleague and unresolved approval process.

“But proof that Callum took the drill is not, by itself, proof that he did so dishonestly,” the court stated.

The Crown argued that Reeves took the drill offsite after closing without Barlow’s permission. It submitted that his decision to message a colleague rather than the person mainly responsible for equipment loans showed he knew he was acting wrongly.

The prosecution also relied on its references to Barlow’s signed statement and argued that Reeves’s message announced the taking rather than sought approval. It sought a theft conviction and a proportionate sentence.

For Reeves, the defence accepted that the message did not prove permission. It nevertheless argued that the stated plan to return the drill the next morning was consistent with an overnight loan, and that Barlow’s evidence left open the possibility of supervisor approval.

The defence did not claim that approval had been established. Its position was that the Crown had not proved Reeves’s dishonest state of mind or excluded an honest belief that borrowing was allowed.

Reeves took Alder Kit Repairs’ cordless drill home after closing. The drill was later recovered, although the record does not specify when.

The hearing centred on the message screenshot, Barlow’s testimony and the parties’ submissions. During her examination, the court sustained a leading-question objection and required the Crown to rephrase a question about the message recipient.

The outcome turns on the Crown’s failure to prove dishonest taking, not an affirmative finding that the loan was authorised. It leaves the question of actual permission unresolved while denying conviction and sentence on the available record.