AN HABITUAL criminal described by his lawyer as being like 'Tigger on acid' in his younger days has been out of trouble since becoming a dad, magistrates heard.

Alex Day, 20, of The Circle, Pinehurst, Swindon, appeared before magistrates in Swindon for failing to comply with a community order to complete 280 hours of unpaid work made by the court in August last year for an offence involving a knife.

For the probation service Karen Fowler told the court that since his last offence Day had found permanent work as a landscaper and had then found it difficult to complete the hours of unpaid work imposed by the court.

She said Day was asking for the remaining hours to be replaced with a suspended sentence order.

Chairman of the bench Gray Gilbert said a suspended sentence would be equivalent to a 'sword of Damocles' hanging over Day’s head as well as removing the punitive aspect of the original sentence.

Representing Day, Gordon Hotson told the court that in his younger life Day had been a very regular attender at both youth and adult courts and had been “like Tigger on acid”.

However, since becoming a father 18-months-ago Day had calmed down, grown up and was approaching life in a much more mature way and had been out of trouble for more than a year.

“He has made real, genuine, positive progress since that time and has completed 110 hours of the order whilst adapting to life as a young father,” Mr Hotson said.

He agreed with the chairman that a suspended sentence would be a sword of Damocles hanging over Day but the risk of being sent to prison, Mr Hotson argued, would be a huge incentive to maintain his good progress.

Mr Gilbert told Day he was lucky not to have been sent to prison for the original knife offence and it was important for him to have complied with the order of the court imposed at that time.

The bench did however, the chairman said, acknowledge the good progress made by Day.

“We are going to modify that sentence in such a way that you still pay back to society but so that it doesn’t get in the way of the rest of your life,” the chairman told Day.

Day was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, plus 50 hours of unpaid work for the benefit of the community and £40 costs to the probation service.

“We are bending over backwards to help you and you had better do that,” Mr Gilbert said to Day. “If not you go to prison.”