Senior Magistrate the Wor. William Francis urged a man not to plead guilty for the sake of convenience.

Quincy Scott, 23 of Sandys Parish pleaded guilty to stealing a carton of cigarettes on April 18 from a Sandys supermarket but claimed he was not the thief.

He added he was guilty of receiving but not stealing the cigarettes.

"I am going to plead guilty because I don't want to come back to court,'' he said.

But Mr. Francis warned him not to blot his clean record with the serious charge of stealing if he was not the culprit.

"It just doesn't smell right at all,'' he told Scott.

Police prosecutor Sgt. Donald Grant said Scott told Police he was waiting on a bike outside the MarketPlace for a friend. The friend came out of the store and handed him a brown paper bag.

The store's assistant manager then approached the men outside the store.

She later told Police she saw Scott through a tinted glass window put the carton under his jacket and leave the store without paying.

At Somerset Police Station Scott claimed he had been tricked into holding the cigarettes for someone else and had no knowledge of what was inside.

Scott, who has no previous convictions, was fined $100 by Mr. Francis.