Six month jail term for prolific offender

A man who was seen performing a sex act in public, begging in Lincoln, and refused to move on from areas when directed has this week been sentenced to six months in prison after breaching a criminal behaviour order (CBO).

Leigh Cuthbert, 34, of no fixed address, had been given a three year CBO on 17 May following a conviction of indecent exposure in Lincoln city centre.

A CBO is an order designed to tackle the most serious and persistent anti-social individuals where their behaviour has brought them before a criminal court. If it’s breached, this is a criminal offence and custodial sentence can be enforced to deal with the individual.

Cuthbert then breached the order on three occasions:

20 May – he was witnessed masturbating outside Greggs, and was charged and remanded for a Section 5 Public Order offence before being released;

23 May – he was found begging outside Winning Post, Carholme Road. This was classed as a breach of his order;

26 May – officers attempted to engage with him outside Tesco in Wragby Road, but he refused to move on from the area. He was charged with breach of order for that incident.

He has now been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for the three breaches of his order, which had been granted only the week before. He will still be subject to his CBO when he is released from prison.

PC Andy Balding from the Public Protection Anti-social Behaviour Team (PPASB) co-located with the City of Lincoln Council, helped secure the custodial sentence. “When we have someone committing persistent ASB, one of our goals is to try and engage with individuals and offer them support in partnership with a number of agencies such as Mental Health, Addiction or Homelessness Services to see if we can remedy the situation.

"We will try all other options possible before going down an enforcement route, but on this occasion the individual repeatedly refused to engage and became a real nuisance to the community.

"We were left with no choice but to take this action to protect the public. It was a huge collaborative effort between the Lincoln and North Hykeham Neighbourhood Police teams, City of Lincoln Council and North Kesteven District Council and a long list of other partner agencies to get to this point. The custodial sentence will offer a reprieve for the communities blighted by his actions, and hopefully force some engagement from him to turn his behaviour around.”