Drug dealer pilfered bacon from Wakefield rugby club during community service
A convicted drug dealer spared jail was then caught stealing a pack of bacon while he was carrying out his unpaid work.
Frankie Swallow avoided being locked up in May of this year when he was found to be selling heroin and crack cocaine.
He was given 24 months’ jail, suspended for 18 months, and also given 200 hour unpaid work.
But during a work session at a rugby club in October, he was found to have stolen the bacon from the fridge and put it in his bag.
The 30-year-old admitted the breach of the suspended sentence at Leeds Crown Court this week. It was heard that he had completed more than 151 hours of the work so far.
Having been caught stealing, he was banned from such work and had been completing the remainder of the work online.
For the Crown, Emily Jenkins said the judge should consider activating Swallow’s suspended sentence and send him into custody.
Mitigating, Christopher Morton said that Swallow, of Prospect Terrace, Knottingley, had stolen the bacon for his own consumption because he had run out of money.
He said that he was living in shared house run by a charity and had undertaken a drug rehabilitation course.
Judge Ray Singh told Swallow: “It’s a grave shame, you were doing so well. It was sheer and utter stupidity to steal from the establishment there to help you.
“If you break the terms of a suspended sentence order you must go to prison, but I have taken into account the amount of hours you have done, so I will not activate it.”
He gave him another 10 hours to complete and warned him: “Nobody is going to give you a second chance I’m afraid.”