buy $100 worth of groceries was fined $450 in Magistrates' Court yesterday.

Donovan Nesbitt pleaded guilty to stealing the cheque from Mona Brangman, defrauding a Co-Op Supermarket employee to deliver $100 of cash and goods by false pretences, creating a false document and fraudulently uttering a cheque.

Senior Magistrate Will Francis fined the man $150 on the first count and $100 on each additional count. He ordered $100 to be paid to the complainant.

The court heard that Nesbitt entered his grandmother's bedroom at their Orchard Grove residence, the Brangman Home, and removed the cheque some time between February 1 and February 19.

The Co-Op's manager later reported the forged cheque to Police but Nesbitt turned himself in shortly afterward and admitted what he had done.

He told Police he had a drug problem and "needed some time away''. He added that he had stolen the cheque out of "temptation and to buy drugs''.

However, duty counsel Peter Farge pointed out that his client had purchased groceries -- not drugs -- with the forged cheque. He added that Nesbitt had said he would pay the money back.