Mansfield man jailed for flouting town centre ban 19 times

A Mansfield man who flouted a court order banning him from the town centre for the nineteenth time has been jailed.
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Craig Robertson was arrested on July 31 after he urinated in a doorway, and he admitted breaching a criminal behaviour order, when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court, on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Emma Heath-Tilford said police and the Mansfield BID team had since agreed to redraw the area from which Robertson is banned until 2020.

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Donna Pursglove, mitigating, said: “The prohibitions were so convoluted he had no clear idea of where he could go or what was happening.”

She said for the most part Robertson, who has a history of drug abuse and mental health problems, simply sat on a bench and waited for the soup kitchen to open.

“The new area of the prohibition lets him go where he needs to go without accessing the area,” she added.

She said the probation service couldn’t do anything for him in the community.

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District judge Jonathan Taaffe said: “I am not unsympathetic to the problems faced by people without a house or accommodation.

“The problem of rough sleepers and drug users is evident in the fact it’s having an economic cost. It’s costing people who are trying to make a living.

“My sympathies are with people who have to deal with people who are off their heads on mamba and urinating in doorways.”

Robertson, 41, of Terrace Road, was jailed for the breaches on July 25, 29, and 31, for a total of 24 weeks and ordered him to pay a £115 government surcharge on his release.

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