A NIGHT worker has blamed a drop in Swindon’s night-time economy for his inability to pay fines imposed by the courts for a string of offences.

Joel James Benjamin Lester, 24, of Church Road, Hinton Parva, was in front of magistrates in Swindon to explain why he had been paying only £10 a week of an outstanding debt to the courts of more than £2,000.

The fines were accumulated for offences that included motoring, theft, criminal damage, using threatening/abusive/insulting words and failing to comply with the requirements of community service orders.

Chairman of the bench Natalie O’Connell asked Lester why, with outstanding fines of £2,015, he had been paying only £10 a week when in September this year he had been ordered by the court to pay at a rate of £20.

Lester said the premises at which he worked were now open only on Fridays and Saturdays.

“So my wages have gone down,” he told the bench. “The night-time economy is not good. I will be able to pay when I have found full-time employment. I can’t pay money that I haven’t got.”

The bench reminded Lester that he was serving a suspended sentence and he could go to prison for not paying as much as he was ordered to.

“I can’t physically do it,” he told the court. “I don’t want to go to jail because I would miss out on my daughter’s life.”

Accepting Lester’s offer of £10 a week, chairman of the bench Natalie O’Connell told him: “This is not a negotiation. Come back in six months and be under no illusion, if you haven’t done what you said you would do you can bring your bag with you because you will not be going out of that door.”