A 39-year-old Inverness man was jailed for five months yesterday on a number of dishonesty charges.
Rory Mackay, of Kenneth Street, who admitted a long record of previous convictions, appeared from custody and represented himself.
He admitted resetting a debit or credit card in three shops in Inverness on September 6 last year.
The court was told that it had belonged to a 10-year-old child who had been given it by her mother for an element of financial independence. However the girl had lost it.
But an app on the mother’s phone monitored the card’s use and alerted her to the missing card being used in a shop on Glenurquhart Road.
Fiscal depute Laura Ryan said: “She went there and found Mackay in possession of the card.”
Mackay explained that his benefits had been stopped and he had been given it by a friend.
Mackay also pleaded guilty to maliciously damaging a prison cell at Inverness Prison on November 24.
He told Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald: “I had been in solitary for weeks and they had stopped my anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medication as well as refusing me my tobacco.”
Mackay also admitted stealing eight watches and a handbag from TK Maxx in Glasgow on December 12 plus fraudulently obtaining a refund for a pair of headphones he had taken from the store.
He said: “I had been transferred to Barlinnie after smashing my cell and wanted to get home to Inverness.”
His sentence was backdated to January 24 when he was taken into custody.
