A MAN who stole an iPhone from a teenager who was lost in the town centre has finally been jailed for 28 days after repeatedly breaching his curfew.

Richard Scott, of Kirkstall Close, Toothill, was ordered to stay inside his home between 9pm and 5am for four months when a judge passed sentence on him in July.

But within a week of leaving court with the community sentence the 34-year-old failed to comply with the curfew for the first time.

And over the following 100 days he breached the terms of the tagging order another 98 times by not being at home when he was meant to be.

Between August 1 and November 9, the last time he was at home, he was away for a total of 74 hours and 19 minutes.

Judge Douglas Field, sitting at Swindon Crown Court, was told that the absences ranged from as short as six minutes up to about four-and-a-half hours.

Scott admitted being in breach of a community order. He had been arrested on a warrant after failing to turn up for an earlier hearing.

Martin Wiggins, defending, said: “I enter only an explanation: the short absences he believes are simply him smoking outside the premises.

“The protracted absences which begin in October led from him being put in fear from an enforcer who wanted money from him. He disappeared but didn’t tell the police.”

He said that since he had been in custody the ‘enforcer’ had taken items from his flat to settle the debt.

Scott took the £400 mobile phone from the youngster when he stopped to ask him where he was late on a Friday night in February this year.

The 19-year-old victim was making his way along Station Road when he realised he did not know where he was.

He stopped to ask Scott for directions and, during the conversation, he took the lad’s phone from him and then walked off.

Scott had been charged with robbery and possession of a knife, but prosecutors dropped those charges when he admitted theft.