A MAN has been jailed after a court heard about how he brazenly stole garden furniture from a person who owed him £5 for a television.

Craig Appleby, 33, who admitted theft and breaching the terms of a suspended sentence order, committed the theft offence on August 13, five months after a court imposed a suspended 12-month jail term for witness intimidation.

Rachael Woods, prosecuting at Carlisle Crown Court, outlined how the victim had bought a TV from the defendant but he still owed £5 of the purchase price to Appleby.

“Arrangements had been made according to [the theft victim] that the [outstanding money owed] would be paid in instalments,” said Ms Wood. But the defendant threatened the man, telling him that he would smash up his house and retrieve the TV if he was not paid.

Appleby had then arrived at the man’s house with two other men. A friend of the victim went to the door and told the defendant to go away.

The defendant was seen to go to the rear of the property before leaving.

But he returned later and took a set of rattan garden furniture which was only a few months old. When it was reported missing, police visited Appleby at his home and found the missing furniture in his garden shed, said Ms Woods.

“The defendant claimed he had borrowed the furniture with the consent of the [victim,” added the prosecutor.

Sean Harkin, for Appleby, of King Street, Cleator Moor, said the defendant was now on the “straight and narrow” and that he had engaged well and constructively with the Probation Service during the period of his suspended sentence order.

Judge Nicholas Barker said that Appleby that during the previous sentencing hearing in March Appleby was warned that his suspended sentence could be activated if he were to commit any further offences during the two-year suspension period.

The offence was not a simple act of theft. “There are elements of intimidation,” said the judge.

“There are elements of you behaving in the same way to the way in which you behaved in the commission of the earlier offence, acting in a threatening, intimidatory way.

“It is clear, Craig Appleby, that you have not learned your lesson. "Had you learned your lesson you would have been seeking an alternative dispute resolution.

“But you didn’t; you went round mob-handed, getting heavy, so seeking to get your money back and that is not the right way.”

Taking into account that the defendant had served curfew as part of his previous sentence, Judge Barker imposed a total of seven months jail. He also imposed a restraining order banning any contact with the victim.