A man who stole cellphones belonging to a teacher was sentenced to three months at hard labour when the matter was mentioned in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on Wednesday.

Michael Webster, the unemployed accused who is from a Kingston address, is alleged to have gone on the compound of Alpha Primary School on June 21, and stolen the cellular phones from a desk in a classroom. He was subsequently chased by students and teachers who retrieved the phones.

He was arrested and charged by the police for simple larceny. Webster, however, begged presiding Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey to be lenient, noting that it was his first offence.

But RM Pusey reprimanded him heavily, and told him that it was because of numerous cellular phone thieves why several Jamaicans were even afraid to answer their phones in public.

But none of the reprimanding prepared him for the sentence. "You can stay there knit up your brow while you do the three months," RM Pusey told the accused.

"What you say, your honour?" the accused asked as he was promptly escorted from the courtroom.