A MAN has indicated guilty pleas to retaining thousands of pounds worth of wrongful credit.

Between May 2020 and March 2023, Shaun Valentine Smith was accused of retaining wrongful credit worth more than £5,000.

This sum comes from eight separate offences, with the 38-year-old first charged with wrongfully keeping £1,475.52 on May 8, 2020.

Valentine Smith, of Lyon Close in St Helens, was also accused of wrongfully retaining £808.40 and £764.11 on May 4, 2021.

On August 26, 2022, the 38-year-old was has also been accused of wrongfully retaining two sums of £600.

He was then charged with wrongfully retaining £330 on March 2, 2023, and then two separate sums of £420 on March 7, 2023.

READ > Family providing the niche and nostalgic with town centre collectible business

Section 24A of the Theft Act 1968 states that a credit to an account is wrongful to the extent that it derives from theft, blackmail, fraud, or stolen goods.

It is an offence for an account keeper to fail to take reasonable steps to secure the cancellation of a wrongful credit when that person knows or believes it is wrongful.

With Valentine Smith racking up £5,418 worth of wrongful credit, he was charged as he kept this money and "dishonestly failed to take steps as were reasonable to secure that the credit was cancelled".

The 38-year-old indicated guilty pleas to the eight offences at Wirral Magistrates Court on August 9, 2024, and he was ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £85 at Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens Magistrates Court on Wednesday, September 18.

Taking his guilty pleas and into account, Magistrates also gave Valentine Smith a community order in which he must carry out 80 hours of unpaid work and up to 10 days of appointments within the next twelve months.

Magistrates also noted that no further costs would be enforced as the defendant is of limited means.