A VAN driver who filled up at York service stations without paying has been jailed and banned from driving.

Scott Andrew Campbell, 29, took £122.37 of diesel from Sainsbury's at Monks Cross at 2.15pm on July 20 and £121.94 from Tesco's Clifton Moor branch five minutes later, said Cathy Turnbull, prosecuting.

But he had been caught on CCTV and police stopped him on the A1 at Boston Spa heading back to West Yorkshire in a van with false number plates.

Campbell, of Tarnside Avenue, Seacroft, claimed to a probation officer he had been acting under pressure from drug dealers to whom he owed money. He claimed they had given him the van.

He pleaded guilty to two charges of making off without paying and one each of having false number plates, driving without insurance and driving without a licence.

York magistrates jailed him for 12 weeks, banned him from driving for six months and ordered him to pay £57.50 compensation to each garage.

His solicitor Andrew Tinning said Campbell was now off drugs and was hoping to start a new life.