A DRUG addict stole scrap metal worth £500 from Lea Castle Hospital, then sold it for less than £100, magistrates heard at Kidderminster.
Nicholas Walker, 18, of Cobham Road, Kidderminster, was ordered to pay £250 compensation and to comply with an existing probation order.
He admitted stealing lead and aluminium from the site and the prosecution dropped a charge of handling material worth £2,000, stolen from the same source.
A witness saw a car loaded with metal leaving the hospital on an evening in April, said prosecutor Liz Tweed.
The number was taken and Walker was arrested.
He had made two journeys to Brierley Hill to sell scrap and had received £98 for it.
Walker had been stealing to finance a drug habit, said his solicitor Gary Harper.
He had been put on probation for similar offences when he appeared before the court in May.
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