Judges say addiction no excuse for burglary

TWO DRUG addicts from Nicosia were jailed yesterday after pleading guilty to burglary in two separate cases.

Both men, who had drug and alcohol related problems, had previous convictions, with both judges saying they had no choice but to remove them from society.

The first conviction yesterday was for 41-year-old Giorgos Frantzis, who pleaded guilty to a series of offences, ranging from a string of burglaries, in which he stole around £4,000 worth of items, to forgery and to causing assault and grievous bodily harm to two police officers.

He had also pleaded guilty to assaulting his mother.

According to police, Frantzis threw her on the floor, breaking her pelvis.

During his mitigation plea, his lawyer said that his client was an alcoholic who had received little or no help from the social services.

The court also heard how his parents had divorced when he was two, that his mother had psychological problems and that he had two previous convictions.

Judge Lemonia Kaoutzani jailed him for three years.

In Judge Angelos David’s courtroom, Andreas Grigoriou, aka Aloutos, had pleaded guilty to breaking into a kiosk on January 28 last year and stealing 177 cigarette packets and other items amounting to around £350.

Grigoriou had been convicted to two years’ imprisonment in 1995 for similar offences.
According to his lawyer, the defendant had been a drug addict since his teens but didn’t move on to heroin until his conviction.

Pleading mitigation, his lawyer also said Grigoriou had tried to beat his addiction at several detoxification centres, but to no avail. The court also heard how he came from a good family and that he was planning to marry in five months.

Jailing Grigoriou yesterday, Judge David said: “The court cannot but feel sympathy for people battling their drug addictions. However, offenders cannot be allowed to use their drug-related problems as a shield in mitigation. The courts, as protectors of our society, need to uphold the law”.

He sentenced the 32-year-old to two and a half years’ imprisonment.

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