A HEROIN user returned to his habit just days after a judge gave him a chance when he said he was off the drugs which had led to his offending.
But the police recognised the pattern of Shaun Hargie’s rail trip to Birmingham to buy heroin, and he was arrested as he left Rugby station on his return.
And back at Warwick Crown Court, Hargie, 43, of Alfred Green Close, Rugby, was jailed for eight months after he admitted possessing heroin and committing the offence while subject to a suspended sentence.
Prosecutor James Bruce said that on August 31 last year Hargie had been given a 14-month suspended prison sentence for handling a stolen bank card, fraud and two pub burglaries.
On that occasion Judge Sally Hancox gave him a chance after being told he had been remanded in custody for two weeks and was clean of drugs.
But just ten days later he was seen leaving Rugby by train, and was known in the past to have travelled to Birmingham to buy heroin of a higher quality than was available in Rugby.
When he returned he was stopped as he left the town’s railway station, and was found to have four wraps of heroin on him, said Mr Bruce.
Judge Anthony Potter said Judge Hancox gave a suspended sentence because Hargie was going to stay off drugs – “so it’s clearly not very impressive that ten days later he’s caught with drugs.”
Anthony Cartin, defending, said Hargie had been addicted to class A drugs for 25 years, and was in and out of court and prison until 2009.
There was then an eight-year break in his offending, when he was in a relationship and had his drug use under control.
When the relationship ended, he resorted to drugs, resulting in the offences for which he was given the suspended sentence, and went back to drug use again after being released back into the community.
“But the offence is now some nine months old, and he’s managed to avoid further offending in the interim,” added Mr Cartin, urging the judge to pass another suspended sentence.
But jailing Hargie for one month for possessing heroin, consecutive to seven months of the suspended sentence, Judge Potter told him: “It is plain that what motivated Judge Hancox to pass a suspended sentence was that you asserted you were off drugs and implied it was your intention to stay off drugs and put offending behind you.
“It makes your behaviour ten days later more serious.
“It would send out quite the wrong message to other people in your position if they thought they could say one thing and do another.
“But it has taken until June for you to come to court, which is most undesirable, and you have stayed out of trouble in that time.”
