Drug addict raids pub flat for car key day after prison release

But Scott Tandy’s mother is standing by him despite spending her own money in a failed bid to rid him of the ruinous habit, a judge heard.

She is prepared to fund another course of treatment for the serial offending 38-year-old when he is set free again, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

The defendant was high on heroin and Diazepam when he slipped into a flat at the Fairfield Inn at Fairfield Road, Halesowen, and stole the keys to the occupant’s car, explained Miss Alison Scott-Jones, prosecuting.

But Tandy just drove the white Nissan Juke to the other side of the street where the owner found him lying fast asleep across the steering wheel shortly after realising it was missing.

Convictions

She quickly took the ignition key and alerted police who arrested Tandy.

He could not remember what had happened and was either unwilling or unable to give blood for drug testing, said Miss Scott-Jones.

She added: “He has a very long list of previous convictions involving acquisitive crime and had just been released from prison the day before the offence.”

Mr David Jaffa, defending, said Tandy’s mother had paid for a course aimed at getting her son off drugs two years ago and was prepared to do the same again after his relapse to ‘give him a chance of survival’.

Tandy, from Kingswood Road, Nuneaton, pleaded guilty to burglary and refusing to give a specimen for analysis and was jailed for six months with an 18-month driving ban on release.

Recorder Abigail Nixon told him: “There would have been problems for pedestrians and other road users if you had taken the car any further.

"Your drug taking has ruined not only your own life but that of your mother who has been pushed to the limit.”