A man who stole a £95,000 (€109,000) piece of Banksy artwork has been jailed for eight months.
Ahmed Bouazzi (40), of Roden Street, Belfast, had previously pleaded guilty to a single count of theft.
It was the prosecution’s case that the incident involved a “high value theft of some £95,000 worth of a piece of art which is a limited edition of a Banksy print”.
Belfast Crown Court heard that, at about 4pm on April 2nd this year, the deputy manager at Charles Gilmour Fine Art, Lanyon Quay, Belfast, was alone in the gallery as the owner had left.
She told police that a man, Bouazzi, entered the gallery and started asking “random questions” about the authenticity of the artwork on display. He was attempting to distract her and divert her attention, she said.
A minute or so later, a second male, co-accused Adil Hajjaj, entered through the front door and she recognised him from his previous visits to the gallery. She said Hajjaj always arrived in the gallery shortly after the owner left.
The deputy manager added she heard “rustling and movement at the back of the gallery and he then left carrying the Primark bag which contained a painting”.
Bouazzi continued asking her questions before leaving around 60 seconds later.
She said she checked the back of the gallery and noticed the Banksy Laugh Now print was missing.
It was subsequently recovered by police from Hajjaj while he was walking along the nearby Ormeau Road in south Belfast with Bouazzi, who is originally from Tunisia.
Following his arrest, Bouazzi gave no comment answers to police questions but told officers that they would not find his fingerprints on the stolen artwork.
The court heard Bouazzi had eight previous convictions on his criminal record but none of them related to “acquisitive crimes”.
In a pre-sentence report, Bouazzi said he regretted getting involved in the theft, he had never done anything like this before, it was completely out of character and he was “upset that he made someone feel bad”.
He added that he expected a custodial sentence but was “distressed about this”.
Bouazzi has been assessed by the Probation Board as being a medium likelihood of reoffending.
“Cases such as this publicly require a custodial sentence because of the brazen nature of the offending,” said Judge Neill Rafferty KC.
“In my view there is a general need for deterrence to protect institutions such as this gallery in question.”
Last month, co-accused Hajjaj, who is from Morocco, was jailed for six months over the artwork theft and was told he would spend a further six months on supervised licence on his release from prison.
Hajjaj (50), of Sandymount Street in south Belfast, had previously pleaded guilty to the theft of the limited edition Banksy.
He further pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods on the same date, namely a bottle of rum from Ross’s Auctioneers.