A former Delifrance manager was jailed for three years yesterday for breaking into one of the restaurant chain's branches and drilling into a safe.
Sim Ka-wing, 26, was convicted of burgling the branch in World Wide House, Central, on June 19. He had pleaded not guilty, saying he only wanted to cause damage, not steal.
District Court judge Alan Wright said he believed Sim made up his story. 'This was a premeditated and thought-out entry into his own former employer with intent to steal what was inside,' he said. 'It was no casual burglary.'
Sim's evidence was 'fanciful, garbled and almost incomprehensible', the judge said. 'His evidence was confused, unreliable and large amounts of it were wholly unbelievable.'
After his arrest, Sim was found to have a long wig, a pair of heavy-framed glasses and cosmetics, which he had used as a disguise. He also used a voice-changing device to call a taxi when he fled the scene, two street maps he hoped would make him look like a tourist, and 24 pairs of plastic gloves.
Sim joined Delifrance in 1994 as a part-time cashier and was promoted five times in six years, eventually becoming a manager overseeing several branches. In his testimony, Sim had said he was forced to resign two weeks before the incident because he failed to keep a promise that he would improve profits at a Causeway Bay outlet.
