Man told ‘chances have now gone’

A Spalding man currently on a suspended prison sentence has been told his ‘chances have now gone’ by a judge who spared him from an immediate custodial sentence for breaching the order.
George Robert Lee (43), of Hereward Road, admitted fraud by false representation when he appeared before District Judge Peter Veits sitting at Boston Magistrates’ Court.
Prosecuting, Marie Stace said a wallet had been stolen from an unlocked car and a bank card from the wallet was subsequently used by Lee in Spalding on September 4 to buy goods totalling £158.
She said Lee admitted being given the card to use, although he had not stolen it himself, and he had handed the goods over to a second man and he himself had been rewarded with cigarettes for making the purchase.
It was said he was in breach of a suspended prison sentence imposed in March last year.
Mitigating, Philippa Chatterton said ‘a term of imprisonment would be devastating for him’.
She said Lee was working well under his suspended prison sentence order and was now at a fixed address and had the help of a number of agencies.
She said he had used the card on four occasions to buy goods for the other man and had been rewarded with just 20 cigarettes.
Judge Veits said there was a ‘very positive report’ from the Probation Service and so rather than sending him to immediate custody, he would be extending his suspended sentence by six months and adding a new suspended prison sentence of four weeks’ custody suspended for a year.
He was also ordered to pay a total of £205 in court costs and charges.