Bolton: Amazon warehouseman stole £1000s worth of iPhones

Norbert Gojkovics, 32, was working at the delivery company’s Bolton warehouse in 2022 when he stole the phones in April and May of that year.

Bolton Crown Court heard the company’s own investigators realised they had been losing phones in June.

Andrew Macintosh, prosecuting, said: “Enquiries revealed that they had gone missing from the pod in which the defendant was working and in which he was spending an usual amount of time.”

Stopping Gojkovics on June 27, the investigators found that he had iPhones hidden inside an apple juice box.

The case was heard at Bolton Crown Court (Image: Newsquest)

Questioned first by Amazon staff and then by the police, the 32-year-old admitted to taking 11 phones over a two month period and when brought before the magistrates court pleaded guilty to six count of theft.

The stolen iPhones came to a total value of £9,953.42p.

Mr Macintosh told the court that Gojkovics’ thefts had clearly involved a “significant degree of planning” and a “breach of trust.”

Graham Rishton, defending, argued that Gojkovics, who has no previous convictions, was entitled to credit for having admitted his crimes.

He said the 32-year-old had felt pressured by the cost-of-living crisis and the after effects of the pandemic.

Mr Rishton said: “It doesn’t offer any justification for what took place, it merely sets it in context.”

He added: “He had succumbed to temptation, really, in the course of his employment.”

Mr Rishton said that Gojkovics, of Hough Street, Bolton, had struggled to make ends meet but now felt deeply remorseful and “utterly foolish” for his actions.

He had now lost his job at Amazon and was in a worse situation than he had been previously.

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Mr Rishton said that Gojkovics had made a total of around £3,000 from stealing the iPhones and selling them on.

Judge Eliot Knopf accepted that the defendant had already paid a heavy price for his actions but reminded him that his thefts had not been “isolated incidents.”

He said: “Sadly many people have been affected by the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic as we are all well aware, but they have not resorted to criminality like this or at all.”

Judge Knopf sentenced Gojkovics to 10 months in prison, suspended for two years and ordered him to do 150 hours of unpaid work with 10 rehabilitation activity requirement days.