A HARROW drug addict who twice stole Poppy Appeal tins from businesses in Harrow was spared jail yesterday, Wednesday March 23.

William Cash, 31, of College Hill Road, has a history of crime stretching back 14 years but was told by magistrates his latest thefts were “stooping as low as you can go”.

John Stelfox, the British Legion's northwest metropolitan county chairman, said: “Obviously we deplore any aspect of theft from poppy boxes.

“The public are very generous and then you get the odd individual who stoops that low.

“Words cannot really describe the feelings of ex-servicemen's friends and family that someone would stoop so low.”

Cash walked into Harrow Garden Centre, in Headstone Lane, with another man on October 28 looking for money to feed his heroin habit.

One of the pair distracted the shop assistant while the other took the appeal box.

The pair used the same tactic at Hatch End Star News, in Uxbridge Road, on November 2, and Cash accepted full responsibility for both crimes.

He was handed a 12 week sentence suspended for a year, slapped with 12 months supervision, given a three-month curfew and ordered to pay £150 compensation.

Andrew Bedford, sitting at Harrow Magistrates Court, said: “Stealing from a charity is a very serious offence, taking money off a counter that people have put into these boxes to support the British Legion.

“This is stooping as low as you can go.”

It is not clear how much money was in the tins but Martin Hawkes, defending, said: “We are talking tens rather than hundreds of pounds and it's something the defendant is deeply ashamed of.”

Probation officer Oliver Burne described a long history of “drug offending behaviour” dating back 14 years to when Cash was just 18 years old.

But he said the defendant has a plan to get over his drug addiction and asked magistrates to give him another chance.