Boozy bike thief's trail of blood led Mansfield police to him

Customers at the KFC on Nottingham Road saw a drunk and bleeding Benjamin Plimmer take the £100 bike, at 12.30am, on August 13, while its owner ate inside,

“In police interview he said he had been out in Mansfield with his girlfriend but could only recall leaving a pub,” said prosecutor Robert Carr. “He then woke up the next morning but didn’t remember how he got back. He thinks he must have taken the bike and dumped it somewhere.”

Plimmer, 28, of Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, admitted theft when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, on Thursday.

The court heard he received a prison sentence in May 2016 for actual bodily harm, and is on post-sentence supervision until December. In July this year he was back before the courts for threatening behaviour, for which he received 120 hours of unpaid work.

Probation officer Cheryl Nisbet said Plimmer had been working well with the probation service and had completed 90 hours of the work.

District judge Andrew Meachin warned him: “You always run the risk of going back to prison if you offend on post-sentence supervision.

“£100 may not seem like a lot of money but it was valuable to him.”

He gave Plimmer a 12 month community order, with 15 days of a rehabilitation activity requirement, and ordered him to pay £100 to the cyclist, and £85 costs.