A CARAVAN dweller connected the mains supply to his farmyard mobile home, a court heard.

Jake Ham could have spared himself a day out at Oxford Magistrates’ Court. But when he failed to pay compensation to Scottish and Southern Electricity for damaging the company’s power cable, the police charged him with causing criminal damage.

Lawyers for the 20-year-old said he had thought the money had been added to other court fines, which was already being paid automatically out of his benefits.

Phil Kouvaritakis, mitigating, said of his client: “He wasn’t aware there was a court pot and a police pot and they don’t interchange.”

Ordering he pay £304.48 in compensation to SSE and £85 in prosecution costs, chairman of the bench David Kinchin told Ham: “You’ve heard what’s been said today. We’ve accepted your guilty plea to this matter. It is quite straightforward, really, isn’t it?”

Earlier, the court heard that a police community support officer had gone to the farm in Great Coxwell, near Faringdon, where Ham was living on December 3 last year. He saw a cable leading from a farm building to Ham’s caravan.

The young man was told he would be cautioned for the offence of criminal damage if he paid compensation to SSE. He failed to pay up and was charged with the crime.

Appearing in the dock on Tuesday, Ham, of London Road, Moreton in the Marsh, pleaded guilty to criminal damage.

He had previous convictions, most recently in January for dangerous driving, when he repeatedly rammed a Honda on a Wiltshire road called ‘Ram Alley’.

He was behind the wheel of a Land Rover on false plates, driving it without insurance and while towing another car when he came face-to-face with the Honda in Burbage in May 2019.

Earlier this year, Swindon Crown Court was told the two cars crashed head-on. Ham then reversed his 4x4 and rammed the Honda three times. He couldn’t get round the other car and fled on foot.

When police arrived they discovered the 4x4 was showing false plates. It was registered to a non-existent company based in Faringdon. Ham, who was 18 at the time, was not insured to drive the car.

After admitting dangerous driving, he was given six months’ imprisonment suspended for two years, banned from the roads for two years and ordered to carry out 24 rehabilitation activity requirement days and 30 hours at an attendance centre.