A COURT was told that a man who stole alcohol from a supermarket had been having “a rough time recently”.

Tony Nowogrodzki, defending Marc Few, 44, of Parsonage Farm Close, Cricklade, told the court that his client suffers from deep-vein thrombosis, his mother had just passed away, his dad was diagnosed with cancer, and his partner was run over by a car and is still in hospital with the risk of losing her legs.

To add to his woes, his two dogs ran away, then when they were found and sent to the pound he couldn’t afford the £200 needed to get them back so they were sent to Canterbury and adopted.

Mr Nowogrodzki said: “This has hit him very hard, it’s all come at once and he’s feeling fairly depressed.”

The defence added that Few’s deep-vein thrombosis made him unable to carry out unpaid work and the fact that he lived on and off at his partner’s home while occasionally visiting her in hospital in Bristol made a curfew order very difficult.

The value of the alcohol Few stole from Tesco’s on May 10 was estimated at around £500 in the court documents but crown prosecutor Keith Ballinger suggested that the figure was actually closer to £140 and no claim of compensation was made as all the stolen alcohol was recovered.

Mr Ballinger revealed that Few has previous convictions for theft and for failing to comply with notification requirements having been placed on the Sex Offenders Register in August 2003 stating he must inform police of any change of address. But one of his neighbours became concerned earlier this year when they didn’t see him come home for a while and no notification had been made to police.

Mr Nowogrodzki said that the defendant was “very apologetic and describes himself as an anti-social person”.

His previous conviction for failing to comply with notification requirements was, Mr Nowogrodzki argued, apparently due to Few not answering the door when police turned up.

Since he didn’t answer the door, they thought he didn’t live there and took him to court, where he was given a fine on April 11.

He had also been given a community order in March then failed to attend several appointments, so he was given five extra rehabilitation appointments and has since complied with the order’s conditions.

Few was back in court charged with failing to notify police of a change of address after not being at his stated address between April 19 and May 23, in addition to the theft charge.

He was fined £115 which he must pay in addition to an outstanding fine of £40.

Few was also given a suspended sentence of 12 weeks due to his “series of breaches and history of non-compliance” and a concurrent suspended sentence of one week for the theft.

The old community order was revoked and replaced with a new one with 35 rehabilitation days and a supervision order.