Waiter faces trial over theft of restaurant art
A WAITER charged with stealing an oil painting from the restaurant he had worked at for six months appeared before Bury St Edmunds Crown Court last week.
Paul Batten, 19, a former employee of the 50-seat Chimney's restaurant in Sudbury, Suffolk, has pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods and attempting to obtain property by deception.
He will be tried at Ipswich or Bury St Edmunds Crown Court next month. A date for the trial has not yet been fixed.
Batten, of Station Road, Sudbury, is charged with burglary and theft and attempting to sell the still-life painting of fruit and flowers, valued at £3,500, the day after the theft in July last year.