A 24-year-old man who was “the driving force” behind a bank card being used fraudulently over 300 times has been jailed for more than two years.

Michael Smith was already subject to a suspended jail sentence when his partner Sherry Batey received the card in the post by mistake.

Judge Jonathan Rose said the cardholder no longer lived at the address, but Smith saw the opportunity to use it.

The judge said he did not believe that Batey came up with the idea to use the card and added: “It was, in my view, overwhelmingly likely that it was Smith that saw the opportunity to use the card to make purchases.”

Judge Rose described Smith, who had previous convictions for dishonesty offences, as “the driving force” behind the use of the card by the couple and others.

“When this opportunity came to you you took it,” the judge told Smith.

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“You didn’t take it once you took it over 300 times. Whether you used it or Miss Batey or others you were the driving force and you will have facilitated its use by others.

“It would not have happened without you. Miss Batey would not be in the dock without you. You know that the only outcome of this can be an immediate sentence of imprisonment.”

Bradford Crown Court heard that the card was used to make purchases totalling more than £15,000, but the bank involved had managed to recoup nearly £12,000 from various retailers.

Smith accepted during a police interview that the card had been used for online shopping, to buy clothes and jewellery and to tax his car.

Smith, of Gledcliffe, Halifax, admitted fraud by false representation and Judge Rose sentenced him to 15 months in jail for that offending.

But the judge also imposed an additional 10 months in prison from the existing suspended sentence order.

Batey, 23, of Alfred Street, Pellon, also pleaded guilty to the same offence and she was sentenced to a two-year community order which includes a six-month tagged curfew at her home between 7pm and 7am.

Judge Rose told Batey, who had no previous convictions, that her tag would remind her every day of her criminality.