A British Man recently spent six hours getting a tattoo of Jesus worth £250 ($370) at a tattoo shop in Luton, England and simply walked out without paying. The artist who inked him said that the man claimed to have paid another member of staff, and then slipped away during the confusion. But here’s the real shocker – not only did he avoid paying for his Jesus tattoo, he actually stole an additional £1,000 from the store!

According to Red INC owner Joanne Baum, the man already had the words ‘Only God can judge me’ tattooed on the other hand. “The irony is that he clearly decided to embrace Christianity and the major ethos is ‘Thou shalt not steal,’” Baum said. “He planned the theft from us and he completely planned not to pay for the tattoo. To have someone sit there for six hours talking about their life intimately and then do this is unbelievable. He was there chatting about his wife and daughter, it is not acceptable.”

The theft wasn’t even an impulsive act – the man had obviously planned it weeks ahead. He actually went to the store two weeks earlier to book the appointment, which was discounted from £420 to £250. He paid the amount, but later returned and asked for £200 back because he had to pay for a car. He then arrived for the appointment on March 23, with a woman he claimed was his wife.

The man got laser removal for a tattoo that was previously done on his arm, before sitting down for the new work. Five hours later, he was alone in the store with the tattooist, who briefly stopped inking to lock a back door. CCTV footage shows that he used this opportunity to sneak into the cash box. Workers later discovered that almost £1,000 had gone missing.

Once the tattoo was complete, the man claimed that he had already paid for the work, and as the tattooist called to confirm with a colleague, the man quickly left the store.

“We felt sorry for the guy as he had such terrible work on his other arm, normally it would have been £420 but our tattooist did it for £250 as a favour,” Baum said. “It is a lot of hard, intense work and he stayed until 7.30pm doing it. It is very disrespectful for our fantastic tattoo artist, would you like to go to work all day and not get paid for it? It was not just the six hours he had, there was also the drawing up and interview beforehand. All in all he had around ten hours of that artist’s time.”

Police investigations are currently ongoing, and the offender is described to be a man of Asian ethnicity, in his 20s, approximately 6 foot tall and well built. Meanwhile, Red INC is now changing its security procedures following the incident.

Photos: Red INC Luton

Source: Luton Today