He will be sentenced in the Magistrates’ Court next month.
Board came across the women’s jewellery – which included bracelets and an Omega watch – in the normal course of his duties at the paper waste conveyor belt at Mayside Recycling.
Board told the court he believed they had either been dumped or abandoned, and that he “felt he had done nothing wrong” at the time.
A few months later, he found himself short of money, so bagged up and took some of the jewellery to Ray & Scott and sold it to them for £470. He signed sale documents saying that the jewellery belonged to him.
He kept the most expensive bracelets and other jewellery, which have since been valued at £5,000 to £10,000 per item and £35,000 altogether.
“I didn’t want to sell the bigger stuff because I wanted to keep them because they were nice, all the diamonds in them,” he said.
Pictured: Board first took the jewellery to Ray & Scott down the Bridge on 9 February 2019 and sold it there on 15 February.
He was eventually arrested at his home following an investigation three months later, in May 2019, and told the officer interviewing him that he “did feel guilty”. Giving evidence yesterday, he said that he did think he was doing something wrong and considered telling Guernsey Police at the time.
Defence Advocate Sam Steel admitted there were some inconsistencies in his client’s account of how he felt when taking the jewellery and whether or not he was committing an offence.
However, on the face of it, the fact that the jewellery was in among paper waste had given him the impression that they had either been “dumped or abandoned” and there was no company policy at Mayside for what to do in that situation.
The firm has introduced a policy that any high value items have to be reported to management since the criminal investigation took place.
Under cross-examination from the Crown Prosecutor, Board admitted that he “knew enough” about jewellery to recognise that they were valuable items on sight and sort through them.
He acknowledged that there “could have been” someone looking for them and agreed with the Prosector’s assessment that he “was cheating, and knew he was cheating”.
Judge Graeme McKerrell agreed with the Prosecutor that Board had not gone to the police because they were “going to ask awkward questions” and because he wanted to keep the jewellery.
“You knew the items were of value and knew enough to sort them into three separate bags,” he said.
Although the circumstances were unusual, it was “still a theft in the course of his employment”, which was an aggravating factor.
Board will be sentenced next month, at which point Judge McKerrell said all sentencing options would be available.