A WANTED homeless man has been jailed after he eluded police for 10 months, failing to complete any of the unpaid work ordered by the court as a punishment.

Brandon Newman, aged 21, was made subject to a community order on December 8, 2015 and a nine week prison sentence, suspended for 24 months.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright activated the suspended sentence at Worcester Crown Court on Friday after Newman failed to complete his unpaid work, a course to curb violent behaviour and dodged police for the better part of a year.

Colin Banham, prosecuting, said Newman’s compliance with the order had been ‘fragmentary’ which he attributed to him being of no fixed address, meaning he did always get notifications from the probation service. The defendant failed to attend appointments with the probation service which Mr Banham said had 'caused problems in the past'.

Mr Banham said Newman had been set to attend an appointment on June 7 last year and he contacted probation to arrange for it to be rescheduled to the following day but then failed to attend.

He had only completed one hour of the unpaid work and even this was not the work itself but the initial appointment, he court was told. A warrant was issued for Newman’s arrest on September 9 last year but he was not arrested until July 25 this year.

Mr Banham said: “He has yet to complete the reducing violence programme.”

Newman, who represented himself, said he was not eligible for legal aid and so would be representing himself.

Judge Nicolas Cartwright said: “Why did you not engage with the probation service?”

Newman said: “I haven’t got nowhere to live. I haven’t got no stability. I find it hard to keep up with the order. I just want to get it over and done with, not have it hanging over my head anymore.”

But the judge said: “You could have got in touch with the probation service. I’m sure you understand that don’t you? You were told when the suspended sentence was imposed that if you didn’t comply with the requirements you would be breached at the crown court and you would be at risk of the suspended sentence being activated.”

The judge said Newman had been told to complete the reducing violence course in December 2015, a year and a half ago, and still he had not done so and had only attended the introductory meeting for the unpaid work but none of the work itself.

Judge Cartwright activated the nine week prison sentence in full, ordering that he be detained in a young offender institution for nine weeks.

He said: "You're not really arguing there could be any other outcome."