A homeless man who tried to break into Highfields council flat pleaded guilty to criminal damage at Leicester Magistrates’ Court on Friday (9).
Mohamed Miah, 50, was given a conditional discharge for 12 months and the court ordered him to pay the city council £500 compensation, the Leicester Mercury.
He tried to enter into the property on November 17 claiming that his TV, clothes and walking stick were inside.
Police were reportedly summoned to Pluto Close in Highfields, Leicester where Miah was reportedly using a screwdriver, a chisel, and a crowbar to try to open the door.
Miah’s keys to the property had been confiscated by the police on November 5, and he had been living in the building’s stairwell since then.
Peter Bettany, prosecuting, said that the defendant had been ‘cuckooing’ the tenant of the city council flat, living with him against the tenant’s wishes.
“He had been staying with someone in that flat but the police understood that person did not want him there – he was being cuckooed. The defendant said his walking stick, clothes and television were in the flat,” Bettany is reported to have said.
Miah’s attorney, Amena Aijaz, claimed that her client had been residing in the staircase ever since the police confiscated his keys and refuted claims that the flat’s tenant was being cuckooed. She claimed that although the two men were friends, the tenant had vanished and her client needed to enter to get his belongings, including his medicines.
During the hearing, Bettany said that Leicester City Council had put the cost the damage to the door at £2,000.
Responding to it, Aijaz said the £2,000 compensation was ‘a bit excessive’.
She informed the magistrate that Miah had been living on the streets since his recent divorce after 37 years of marriage, and that he had health problems including liver ailments.
