Thug jailed for claiming he could not get a lift to community service

A judge told Joshua Jones that he had been given an “exceptional opportunity” last year when he was convicted of unlawful wounding, but was allowed to keep his freedom.

Instead, he was given a suspended sentence with 180 hours of unpaid work and a nine-month curfew.

But the 30-year-old was brought back to Leeds Crown Court this week after admitting he then failed to turn up for the work on several occasions.

Prosecutor Hana Ahmed said that probation had contacted him numerous times to remind him of the work, and he later responded through text message, twice saying he had family “problems” and an “emergency” on two occasions, then after another incident said he got “let down for a lift” and it was “too late to get a taxi”.

Ms Ahmed said he had three unauthorised absences and had done very little of the work expected of him.

The court heard that Jones had received his 18-month jail term, suspended for two years, for fracturing a man’s jaw. He was already on a suspended sentence when he committed that offence also.

Jones, of East Avenue, Horbury, near Wakefield, admitted two breaches of the latest suspended sentence order.

Mitigating, Matthew Stewart, said: “He accepts the breaches but putting them into context his mother was in hospital with sepsis and pneumonia.

"He know he should have put his order before anything, he should have made probation aware if he was going to attend or not.

"It was a difficult time for him.”

A probation report proposed that he should be fined and given additional unpaid work, but the judge Recorder Richard Wright QC made it clear that he disagreed.

He told Jones: “When you appeared in front of me before I made it absolutely clear that you were receiving an exceptional opportunity.

"It does not excuse or explain this consistent failure to do the work.

"You have failed to demonstrate any willingness to comply.

"I have no option but to activate the sentence.”

He was given the full 18 months’ jail.