A MAN who was spared jail for a violent assault has been told he doesn't have to do his unpaid work because his bosses say it will jeopardise his job as a leak repair and maintenance man for Thames Water.

Bobby Tilling was ordered to do 140 hours of community service after he was put on a suspended jail term at Swindon Crown Court in July last year.

But in the ten months since then he has only completed one day and the induction meeting, leaving him with 131 hours outstanding.

Now a judge has changed the order into a £750 fine after being told that Tilling feared he would be sacked if he made himself available to do the punishment.

The 24-year-old said that he was on 24 hour call out, seven days a week for Thames Water.

He told the court that he had tried to fit the community service around his work, but could not commit to it as he was called out most days.

And he said his employers, who he had managed to persuade to provide a letter for the court, told him he may lose his job if he couldn't be on standby at all times.

"Thames Water said it would jeopardise my work if I could not be on call 24 hours," he told the court.

A probation officer said that once someone had gone for a day's unpaid work then they had to complete the seven hours and could not leave early.

Tilling said he tried to secure time off work so he could commit to completing his sentence but his employers didn't like it.

"I tried heaving a day off here and there and they weren't happy with it," he told the court.

And when the judge said someone from his employers should come to court or write to explain why it couldn't be fitted in, Tilling said he feared that would lead to him being let go

He said: "I am just scared if I go back now they will say it is too much trouble and get rid."

At the time her was put on the suspended sentence he said he was working as a landscape gardener.

Before then he had been employed by contractors Clancy Docwra on leak repairs and went back to working for the water company soon after being sentenced.

"Pretty much just after being in court I got offered my job back with Thames Water," he said.

Mark Ashley, for the probation service, said they had an email from Thames Water saying he was 'on standby on a seven day basis'.

Judge Tim Mousley QC said that the community service order had become unworkable and that he would replace it with a fine.

He was told that Tilling took home in the region of £800 a week, but only had about £600 in savings as his outgoings were high as he was getting married in the summer.

Tilling, of Wills Avenue, was put on an eight month jail term suspended for 18 months in July after he admitted actual bodily harm.

The court was told how he punched and kicked the man during the incident on Friday December 5, 2014.