A homeless man described as a nuisance at The Plas Coch Retail Park in Wrexham, has been jailed and banned from attending there for three years.

A criminal behaviour order was made in respect of Neil Young which bans him from the retail park for the next three years.

He is not to approach people in the Wrexham county area asking for money and he is not to loiter outside shops encouraging people to give him money.

Young, 31, who had a c/o address in Pentre Gwyn in Wrexham but who has been living in a tent, appeared from custody at North East Wales Magistrates’ Court at Mold, after he breached his bail conditions not to enter the retail park.

He was jailed for 150 days after he admitted shoplifting from Sainsbury’s, resisting police, a public order offence and possessing crack cocaine.

District Judge Chris Johnson said he had continued to offend while the subject of a suspended prison sentence.

In the circumstances he had no alternative but to impose an immediate custodial sentence, he said.

Prosecutor Rhian Jackson said the defendant was well known as someone who sat outside Sainbury’s where he said people would give him food and money.

But a woman in her 60s had become upset after she approached the defendant, who she had known from outside the store where she was a regular shopper, and politely spoke to him about an earlier incident where it was alleged he had approached another pensioner and upset him, asking him for money.

He became abusive, swore at her and told her to watch her back.

On another occasion he was seen defecating near a tree close to the supermarket.

He had also been abusive to staff and told one that he would knife her.

Wraps of cocaine had been found on him.

Later in interview he said people were making things up to get him into trouble or had misheard.

“If I had a knife I would cut my own throat,” he told officers.

Sainsbury’s had written a letter banning him from the premises because he was such a nuisance to staff and customers but he ignored it and continued to attend, the court heard.

Young, who had previous convictions for 107 offences, was said to have engaged with the probation service but not fully.

Christie Ankers-Phillips, defending, said it was her client’s case that he did not bother people outside the store but people who knew him gave him food and drink when they saw him there.

He had stayed away from other homeless people because he did not want to associate with them.

More recently it had been his late father’s birthday and the anniversary of his death.

He had offended but she said it was all linked to his drug problem.

She suggested further intervention from the probation service rather than send him back to custody.

The probation service had said that if he went to custody then on his release he could seek assistance with his housing situation.

But Miss Ankers-Phillips said her client had been to custody several times but he remained homeless on his release.

“He does need help with his drug issues,” she said.

(*) On New Year’s Day Young appeared in court from custody after he breached his bail not to go to Sainsbury’s.

He was seen sitting outside and he claimed that he was simply waiting for a Good Samaritan.

The defendant had been put up in a Premier Inn on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day by a couple as a gesture of good will.

They had promised him that they would do the same on New Year’s Eve and the defendant had simply been outside Sainsbury’s waiting for them, it was claimed. He was rebailed until later in January but was arrested for a breach of his bail conditions.