As a judge sentenced a serial crook from Kenton to 18 months in jail he has attacked contactless bank cards for making life too easy for criminals. 

Recorder Mr David Bartlett said it was ’quite ludicrous that the banks have allowed this to happen’ after hearing how a stolen card was used in a shop soon after it was stolen.

Career criminal Robert Vipond used the card after it was taken from a man’s bedside as he slept in his home in Exeter in the early hours.

He made contactless purchases but also took out cash from ATM machines using a PIN number which had been left on a notebook on the same bedside table as the wallet.

Contactless cards can be used for transactions up to £30 and Vipond used the card to buy £23 worth of tobacco and groceries from a convenience store in Magdalen Road, Exeter.

The offence was one of a spree in which Vipond used two stolen cards to withdraw £250 cash and buy a £1,500 watch and £279.45 worth of clothes.

He is a heroin addict with 32 previous convictions for theft alone, and had only been released from a four-and-a-half year sentence nine days before the offences.

Vipond, aged 34, of Gissons Lane, Kennford, admitted handling stolen bank cards, theft, and four counts of fraud and was jailed for 18 months at Exeter Crown Court.

Commenting on the use of the card the judge said: ’You can make these contactless payments now. It seems quite ludicrous that banks allow this to happen. It seems anyone who steals a card can wave it around until it is reported as stolen.’

He told Vipond: ’I think you are a career criminal. You may well be a heroin addict, but you are still a career criminal, as is demonstrated admirably by your recent performance.’

Miss Anita Noerr, prosecuting, said the Natwest and Tesco cards were stolen from the bedside table of a man as he slept in his home at Lords Way, Digby, Exeter, between midnight and 8.10 am on April 5.

The identity of the burglar is not known but by 6.15 am Vipond was using the cards to obtain money from cashpoints in Magdalen Road and using the contactless facility to buy goods worth £23 from the St Leonards News.

He tried and failed to use a card to withdraw £250 in the High Street at 6.42 am and at 10.14 he bought a £1,500 TAG watch from the Goldsmiths shop using chip and PIN.

He bought £279.45 worth of clothing from John Lewis 30 minutes later and was seen on CCTV visiting Cash Converters in Sidwell Street.

The victim had reported the cards stolen as soon as he woke up, but it was not until 11.29 am that the card was seized when he tried to use it in another shop.

Vipond was identified by CCTV from various locations and arrested. He had only been released on licence on March 27 from a four-and-a-half year sentence for burglary and handling passed at Derby Crown Court in January 2014.

Miss Emily Cook, mitigating, said Vipond was given the cards by two men who paid him £250 and kept the rest of the cash and the purchased goods from themselves.

She said Vipond wanted to overcome his drugs habit but had slipped back into heroin use because he had been prescribed methadone rather than the more effective Subutex on his release.