A bin man on drugs reversed into a security guard after he was challenged over shoplifting.
Tomas Hughes was challenged at B&M in Queensferry , but drove at the security officer and knocked him over, causing injuries to his head.
At Mold Crown Court, Hughes, 35, of Talfryn Close in Connah’s Quay, denied a charge of dangerous driving but he was convicted by the jury.
The court heard him admit shoplifting and assaulting the guard.
He had admitted later shoplifting offences at stores in Prestatyn , and had also admitted an earlier affray and criminal damage matter when he smashed up a woman’s flat in Mold Road, Connah’s Quay, causing up to £4,000 worth of damage.
Neighbours had alerted the police when they saw the defendant with an axe and a pair of garden shears at the property. He was said to be dangling out of the window at one stage, shouting.
Sentencing him this afternoon, Judge Walters said he had committed a catalogue of offences, representing a crime spree.
Judge Walters said Hughes had started taking heroin, “the most evil and damaging of all drugs”.
He said that he had read a letter from the defendant’s parents, thoroughly decent people, who had watched him change and they could not understand what had suddenly possessed him.
“The great miracle is that they are standing by you. You don’t deserve it,” the judge said.
The defendant had been a hard working man who was rightly proud of the fact that he had been promoted to a driver, emptying bins around Flintshire.
But taking drugs he became aggressive and it was drugs which lay at the heart of his offending.
The choice was now his – he could continue taking drugs and face longer and longer prison sentences or he could change.
An intensive alternative to custody sentence would give him that chance but it was up to him. “It is make or break time for your now,” he said.
Prosecuting barrister Matthew Dunford said that in a victim impact statement, the security guard told how his life had changed, he had lost confidence, he suffered nightmares and flashbacks and was on medication.
John Hedgecoe, defending, said that Hughes appreciated that the five months he had spent in custody had probably been a good thing.
He wanted to change his life, he was in a relationship, the couple were expecting a baby, and the defendant was looking forward to settling down to family life.
It emerged that Hughes had admitted a catalogue of other offences but he escaped immediate imprisonment because of the time he had served in custody on remand.
Judge Geraint Walters said that he had already served the equivalent of a ten month sentence and he could only return him to prison for a matter of months.
He had therefore decided to give him a chance to get his life back on track by placing him on the most intensive community order imaginable.
It was a direct alternative to custody, he said.
Hughes was banned from driving for three years and ordered to take an extended driving test before he takes to the wheel again.
He was placed on a two year community order with 50 sessions of intensive rehabilitation, and a 12 month drug rehabilitation programme with monthly reviews before a crown court judge.
A substance misuse programme was ordered and the defendant was banned from B and M and some other stores for the next two years.
See- http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/connahs-quay-bin-man-drugs-10501276
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