A GROUNDWORKER used a stolen bank card to go on a £70 spree, a court heard. 

Russell Bastow, 41, tried to use the stolen Nationwide debit card to buy almost £50 worth of cigarettes. 

But by then the building society had flagged the unusual activity on the card and the transaction was declined.

Bastow, who in January was given 18 months in jail for his latest burglary, claimed the card had been given to him by another man. He’d used the card at various convenience stores in Swindon on the instructions of the man, although he suspected the bank card was not his.

Prosecutor Graham Dono told Swindon Magistrates’ Court yesterday that the card was in a rucksack left by a subcontractor at a property in Whitworth Road that was being refurbished.

The man received a call from Nationwide on January 19 last year asking about a number of suspicious transactions using his debit card. It was then the man realised he did not have the card.

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How the Adver reported the case in January Picture: ADVER

Jonathan Lewis, mitigating, said his client was not involved in the theft of the card. He was approached by a young man, given the card and asked to make the purchases. He had suspicions that the card was stolen, but put his concerns to one side. 

The magistrates heard Bastow, who had a long list of previous convictions to his name, had gone straight and even owned his own groundworking business. When the lockdown hit his business, he fell back into crime and was given 18 months’ imprisonment at Swindon Crown Court earlier this year for burglary. 

Bastow, of Millard Close, Tadpole Garden Village, pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud by false representation. 

He was fined £320, ordered to pay £69 compensation and must pay a £32 victim surcharge.