A MAN who stole a woman's debit card in a nightclub was caught after he used it nine times later that morning.

A court heard Dawn Pritchard was in Atik in Wrexham on October 10 last year when she noticed her bank card and mobile phone were missing from her handbag which she had left unattended for a moment.

She was able to cancel her mobile phone but there was a problem doing the same with her card because the Barclays Bank system being down.

Ms Pritchard saw her contactless card had been used nine times in the early hours of the morning including at a McDonalds and a Spa store in Wrexham where CCTV was used by shop staff to identify Sanosi Hassan, 45.

Hassan, of Racecourse Road, Chesterfield, had previously lived in Wrexham but had moved to Derbyshire following the breakdown of his marriage, North East Wales Magistrates Court heard.

He had previously pleaded not guilty to the October 3 offence of fraud by false representation but changed his plea on November 5 after the CCTV footage was recovered and viewed for the first time.

Probation officer Andrew Connah said Hassan was co-operative but had little memory of the incident because he had been out drinking with friends at the time.

Emma Simoes, defending, told the Mold court it was "unacceptable" that the Crown Prosecution Service had only come up with the CCTV footage at 10am on the day of Hassan's trial, having had a year to do so and that if he had seen the footage there would have been no need for a trial.

District judge Gwyn Jones said the purchases made by Hassan showed he knew what he was doing and he had used the card deliberately.

He handed Hassan a 12 month community sentence with an unpaid work requirement of 160 hours and ordered him to pay costs of £300, a victim surcharge of £85 and compensation of £109.55 to Barclays Bank.