A CONMAN who used stolen credit card details to buy guns and plasma TVs has narrowly avoided jail.

Jake Jagger, 22, fraudulently spent £16,000 of his victims’ cash at electronics shops in Lincolnshire and the Airgun Centre in Rayleigh, before selling the items at car boot sales and online.

He told Basildon Crown Court yesterday he committed the crimes out of desperation after splitting with his girlfriend and losing his home.

Sentencing Jagger, of College Close, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, Judge Jonathan Black said: “Quite clearly these crimes were a matter of desperation, when in your view everything was going against you.

“You made the wrong decision that criminality was the answer to your problems.”

The court heard, while working as a delivery driver at White Space Publishing, in Boston, Lincolnshire, Jagger stole the credit card details of a customer.

He then made a number of visits to a family-run electronics business in Lincolnshire between December 2012 and March 2013 where he spent about £7,464 on plasma TVs On December 15 he drove to the Airgun Centre, in London Road, Rayleigh, where he bought £2,200 of air rifle equipment.

The court heard Jagger also bought a pressure washer worth £2,760 from Phillips Animal Health, in Hornchurch, which he charged to the account of a former employer.

He also took £1,300 from Aaron Jackson’s bank account after selling him some of the air rifle equipment online.

However, the court heard he never dispatched the goods.

In total, Jagger admitted nine counts of dishonesty.

He was sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended for 18 months,asix-month supervision order and 250 hours of community service.

He was ordered to paya£100 victim surcharge.