A FRAUDSTER is back behind bars after stealing a TV from a town centre hotel.

Dale Simpson, from Orford, was handed a year in jail in January following a three-month crime spree – in which he stole a bank card and used it to pay for a taxi he fled the scene of the crime in.

But the 29-year-old has been hauled back before the courts and imprisoned again.

Simpson, of Kirkstone Avenue, pinched a television from the Patten Arms Hotel on Wilson Patten Street on Tuesday, July 2.

He appeared at Warrington Magistrates Court on Saturday, July 6, where he admitted theft and was jailed for four weeks on recall to prison.

The defendant had previously targeted a number of insecure vehicles throughout the Warrington area between September and November last year – stealing bank cards from these cars.

He then used these cards in convenience stores and garages, and to pay for taxis – spending a total of around £85.

It is believed that on at least one occasion, Simpson used a stolen bank card to fund a taxi that took him home from the scene of one such theft.

The convicted burglar later handed himself into police, telling officers that he had committed the frauds in order to pay off debts.

His thefts began only weeks after he had been spared prison for his part in a disturbance at a pub.

When he was handed 12 months in prison earlier this year, Liverpool Crown Court heard that Simpson had planned to move to the Wigan area with his girlfriend in order to ‘make a fresh start’ as he had a ‘number of bad influences’ in Warrington.

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He was also ordered to pay compensation of £100 and a £122 victim surcharge by magistrates.