A MAN with only two hours of freedom a day was found out and about when he shouldn’t have been because he needed to pay the rent to keep the flat he was curfewed to live at.

Lee Ryan is currently awaiting to be the outcome of a case in which it is alleged he assaulted a woman on June 18.

He pleaded guilty on a basis and the case will now have to go to a Newton hearing to establish the facts of the incident.

The 41-year-old was released on conditional bail to live at his home address on Beechcroft Road. This was monitored by an electronic curfew which only allowed him to leave the property between 10am and noon every day. He must spend the remaining 22 hours of his day indoors.

But on July 21 he was found out of his home during his curfew period. He was arrested and brought before the court in custody where he admitted the breach.

His defence, Terence McCarthy told the court that his client had left the house to go to the bank after he had lost his debit card, which he needed to pay his rent to keep him in the house he was bailed to live at. But he had been held up at the bank and didn’t make it back to his home in time.

But the magistrates told him that he would have been warned that any breach of the curfew would result in him being held in custody, and that was what they intended to do.

He will next appear via a videolink at North West Wiltshire Magistrates’ Court in Chippenham on August 4 ahead of the Newton hearing.