Sascha Wil­son

An Erin man who seems to have a fetish for brassieres was on Thurs­day sen­tenced to four years in prison.

Vin­cent Coutou, 53, who has been charged 39 times, plead­ed guilty to steal­ing the six brassieres val­ued $2,000.

Coutou, who ap­peared be­fore Siparia Se­nior Mag­is­trate Mar­garet Alert, ad­mit­ted he told the po­lice, "Yes of­fi­cer, I take she bras and them. I just want­ed to lie down on them. It on the floor in my room."

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Starr Ja­cob said the own­er washed her clothes and hung them on a clothes­line be­hind her Are­na Vil­lage, Erin home on Feb­ru­ary 5. How­ev­er, when she went to pick up the clothes she dis­cov­ered her six Bali bras miss­ing.

Dur­ing en­quires by WPC Avelon Mon­seque of the Erin Po­lice Sta­tion, she re­viewed CCTV cam­era footage which led her to Coutou's home.

She ar­rest­ed him and found the bras at his home. The bras, which were in a black bag, were shown to the mag­is­trate. Coutou al­so plead­ed guilty to steal­ing a $5,300 brush­cut­ter and a 20-inch brush­ing cut­lass val­ued $120. The own­er dis­cov­ered the items miss­ing from his Are­na Vil­lage home on Feb­ru­ary 4.

Po­lice re­cov­ered the stolen items near Coutou's home. He was al­so charged by PC Han­iff Ojeer for steal­ing a $3,500 wa­ter pump last month, but he plead­ed not guilty.

Not­ing that with­in the last ten years he was con­vict­ed six times for sim­i­lar of­fences, the mag­is­trate told him in east­ern coun­tries peo­ple hands were chopped off for steal­ing. How­ev­er, she said in his case he would have end­ed up with no hands and legs be­cause of the nu­mer­ous times he was charged with lar­ce­ny. Point­ing out that the max­i­mum penal­ty for the of­fence is five years, she sen­tenced him to four years on each charge but or­dered the sen­tences to run con­cur­rent­ly. He was de­nied bail on the oth­er charge and the mat­ter was ad­journed to March 8.