Sunderland thief who used stolen credit card to buy takeaway is jailed

John Patrick Weatherald has been locked up after admitting theft, fraud and a string of other unrelated offences stretching back more than a year.

Weatherald, 50, of Summerhill, near Burn Park, Sunderland, stole the NatWest bank card on June 14 last year.

Court documents state that he pretended he was the owner of the card and “bought takeaway food for yourself” on the same day.

South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court decided that the “offence was aggravated by the defendant's record of previous offending” and jailed him for a week for the two crimes.

The court also sentenced him to another 17 days in prison after he admitted eight other charges.

They include four drunk disorderly offences committed across the city between May 28 last year and February 12 this year.

Two of the incidents took place at Sunderland Royal Hospital, another in Waterloo Place, in the city centre, and the fourth at Mahmood’s Newsagents, in Hylton Road.

Weatherald also admitted attempting to burgle the city’s Wilko store on August 1 last year, stealing two camping chairs worth £20 from Go Outdoors on May 28 last year, failing to comply with supervision requirements on September 6 last year following his release from a previous jail term and failing to surrender to bail on March 5 this year.

He was also ordered to pay a £115 victim surcharge although no order for court costs was made “due to lack of means and fines outstanding”.

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