A 33-year-old man has been jailed for four months after committing seven offences before a previous jail sentence he’d been released early from had expired.
William Oliver Heginbotham admitted possession of heroin, failing to stop after an accident, failing to stop for police, careless driving, and three counts of driving under the influence of drugs.
In 2019, he was jailed for five years and nine months for heroin and cocaine trafficking.
He was released from that sentence early, and although the licence period had expired, the sentence itself had not.
Magistrates gave him a suspended sentence for the latest offence but jailed him for four months in relation to the unexpired previous sentence.
The new offences began on November 18 last year, when Heginbotham was arrested for driving under the influence of morphine, and benzoylecgonine, which is a metabolite of cocaine.
He was also found to be in possession of 0.1 grams of heroin.
On February 17 this year, Heginbotham was again arrested for driving under the influence of morphine.
And on May 21, he was arrested for careless driving, failing to stop after an accident, and failing to stop for police.
Defence advocate Helen Lobb said that the nature of the more recent offences had been different to the ones from 2019, though heroin was involved.
Ms Lobb said that Heginbotham, who lives at Viking Close in Colby, had self-referred to the Drug and Alcohol Team, and had been working hard to distance himself from people involved with drugs.
She said that sending him to prison would undermine all the rehabilitation work he had undertaken.
The advocate said that her client was vulnerable, was seeking help, and since April had been producing clean urine samples.
A probation report agreed that Heginbotham was vulnerable and that custody wouldn’t address issues that underpinned his offending.
Magistrates sentenced the defendant to eight months' custody, suspended for two years, for the latest offences, but sent him back to prison for four months in relation to his previous sentence.
He was also banned from driving for three years for the motoring offences, and ordered to take an extended test at the end of his ban.