A beauty therapy student was led astray by her jailbird boyfriend when she treated herself to a gym membership and Just Eat meal using a stolen bank card, a court heard.
Ashley Spiers, 19, shelled out £31.99 to Pure Gym and £22.30 for the takeaway when she made the fraudulent orders online from her Edinburgh home.
Her serial thief partner Ryan Comerford, 28, admitted reset of the card, which the pair also used online to buy goods from JD Sports worth £90.99.
The card had been stolen from a premises in the capital belonging to disability charity Leonard Cheshire.
Spiers appeared for sentencing at the city’s sheriff court on Monday after pleading guilty to charges at an earlier hearing.
Murray Robertson, representing Spiers, said: “She gave Mr Comerford a place to stay and embarked very quickly on a spree of offending.
“If she had not encountered Mr Comerford it’s likely we would not be here today.”
Mr Robertson said his client had a “very damaged upbringing”, adding: “She is not without talent in music, drama and beauty.”
The solicitor added Spiers “accepts full responsibility” for the offences she committed.
Sheriff Alistair Noble sentenced Spiers to an 18-month community payback order with supervision during that period.
Comerford appeared via video link from the city’s Saughton Prison at the previous earlier in December and was given four months.
He was already serving more than four years for other offences and the latest term was added onto his punishment.
Spiers, who now lives in the city’s Fountainbridge area, is studying beauty therapy at Edinburgh College, according to a Facebook page under her name.
In a post picturing her with Comerford, a July message says “Come home soon” with his name bracketed by love hearts.
The Facebook page made public the relationship between Spiers and Comerford in December 2019.
After Spiers appeared in court in December an image on the page read, “In a Toxic Relationship with Just Eat” and featured the company’s logo.
The pair admitted using the card from Spiers’ then-address in the city’s Muirhouse area on March 5 last year.
Spiers admitted obtaining the gym pass and the Just East order by fraud using the card, while both admitted the same offence over the JD Sports purchase.
Comerford also pled guilty to the reset of the card and breaking into an architect’s office in the city’s Portobello area on March 30.
Defence agent Eddie Wilson, acting for Comerford, said his client “accepts fully that he has a dreadful record” for similar offences.
Mr Wilson said Comerford had managed to get himself onto a college course before the coronavirus pandemic, but the lockdown impacted his bursary and he was forced to apply for universal credit.
The solicitor said Comerford “had no money” and “resorted to his old ways”, adding: “He fully accepts the folly of that.”
The court was told of several recent jail sentences that Comerford had received, including a four years and four month term imposed at the High Court in Edinburgh last November.
