South African soccer star Mark Fish’s father, Malcolm Fish, was on Thursday jailed for two years for going on a string of drinking binges with stolen cheques.
Fish (50), who had a previous conviction for fraud, begged for ”one last chance in life again”, when he appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court before Joe Magele and assessor Bernie Shapiro.
He told the court he felt the ”deepest regret” for the embarrassment he had caused his family, friends and, especially, his famous son.
He admitted stealing six cheque pages from his friend Beverley Windt, but said he had not intended doing anything with them ”until the devil got hold of me”.
The magistrate authorised the prison authorities to release Fish for good behaviour into correctional supervision (house arrest), at their discretion, after he had served an appropriate number of months.
Magele said Fish had abused Windt’s trust in him.
He said Fish had used the cheques to entertain friends and enjoy himself, and had shown very little remorse.
Fish was sentenced on two charges of stealing cheque pages — the second charge related to cheque pages stolen from an unnamed victim at the Guzzler’s pub in Milnerton — and nine counts of fraud relating to drinking sprees at Guzzlers, the Cue Inn in Monte Vista and the Richwood Inn at Richwood between November 2000 and April 2001.
The charges were treated as one for the purpose of sentence.
After his release on bail, Fish went on the run for two years before the police caught up with him at a restaurant in July this year.
Confronted about this by prosecutor Natalie Veldsman, Fish said his daughter had had her matric dance coming up at the time, ”and I was worried about what would happen to me if I went to court”.
He added: ”I didn’t know whether to go to court or not, and hoped the court would forget about the case.”
Fish has a pending theft case, and is scheduled to appear in the Goodwood Magistrate’s Court in connection with it on Monday. — Sapa