A MAN who netted more than £6,000 in 10 months by selling metal items he "collected" has appeared before York magistrates.

Luke Daniel Jamieson, 26, initially claimed he wasn’t running a scrap metal business but later accepted that he was.

Victoria Waudby, prosecuting for City of York Council, said officers twice saw him with a van load of metal items.

Records kept by a licensed York metal recycling firm showed that between January 21 and November 6 last year, he repeatedly sold them metal items.

Altogether, they paid him just over £6,000.

Jamieson, who described himself as an odd job or handyman, said he couldn’t afford a scrap metal dealer’s licence.

"I was doing a job (as a handyman or on building sites), if I see scrap metal, I collect it," he said.

Jamieson, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to running an unlicensed scrap metal business, failure to produce records about where he acquired metal and failure to produce records about where he sold it, all committed between January 21 and November 6 last year.

He also admitted failure to provide details of waste he had carried between September 2016 and September 2018 and failure to show a council officer his authorisation to carry waste.

Magistrates ordered him to pay a total of £1,080 including £550 in fines, £500 prosecution costs and a £30 court surcharge.

He represented himself and told the court he had needed special help with his lessons when at school.

He was seeking medical help for his low mood and also had debt problems.