A GREAT-GRANDFATHER lost his Christmas photos and nearly gave up his beloved photography hobby because a thief stole his camera at York Railway Station, the city’s magistrates heard.

Nick Holdsworth, prosecuting, said Alan Patterson accidentally left the bag containing his camera and associated equipment, including memory disks behind in a bag on Platform 3 when he boarded a train home on December 27. Together they were worth £1,700.

But though he realised his mistake before the train left and went straight back to the bench where he had left it, by then David Karl Hampton had stolen it.

“I feel as if I had been kicked in the stomach,” he said in a victim impact statement, adding that he needed to take tranquilisers.

The bag had contained the photos he had taken over Christmas, including of the Archbishop of York.

“If it wasn’t for the fact I will soon be photographing my great grandchild’s christening, I would give up photography altogether,” he said.

Hampton, 52, had recently been released from a two-year sentence for sexual harassment and was staying at Southview Probation Hostel on Boroughbridge Road, York, at the time, the court heard. He has many other sex and at least one theft convictions.

The court heard he is a keen trainspotter and is frequently seen at the railway station.

PC Nick Storey of British Transport Police in York said outside court: “If you are travelling on the railway system or are in a railway station, keep your property with you at all times.”

Hampton, a shopping centre cleaner, now of Tostig Avenue, Acomb, denied theft but was convicted after a trial. He was fined £180, and ordered to pay £200 compensation, £200 prosecution costs and a £30 statutory surcharge. Hampton denied taking the bag in evidence.

In police interviews summarised for the trial, he accepted he gambled, but denied selling the camera and equipment to fund his gambling.

Mr Holdsworth said the camera and associated equipment was insured, but Mr Patterson had had to pay a £200 excess and may face higher insurance premiums in future.