A 50-year-old man received a conditional discharge for stealing $20 from a Warwick Clinic, when he appeared in Magistrates' Court.

Richard John Allen, of St. Mary's Road, Warwick pleaded guilty yesterday to the offence, which was more than a year old.

According to Crown counsel Cindy Clarke, on Sunday June 22, Gaylia Landry, the Chief Nursing Officer and management for community services locked the clinic.

The next day, Miriam Callibras, a district nurse, opened it up and noticed the shutters were open and the windows had been taken out of the frames.

After looking around the office she noticed that the petty cash box was sitting on the counter rather than stored below and that $20 was missing.

A Police forensics team was called in and they dusted for prints, but it was not until December 8 this year that Allen was arrested.

When he was cautioned for the offence, Allen said he could not remember if he did it.

Yesterday, Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner questioned why it had taken Police a year to connect the finger prints at the scene to Allen's when he had been in prison since the offence.

Ms. Clarke said he had been imprisoned on March 24 this year and when he was being processed to be released the Police then compared his finger prints.

Mr. Warner then sentenced Allen to a conditional discharge for 12 months and required that Allen continue working.