A THIEF who stole a charity cash box has been jailed for four months - after he refused to carry out unpaid community work.

Dale Rivers and an accomplice aroused the suspicions of the office manager in Malvern Link post office in Worcester Road.

A security camera showed one of the men had put a bag into the Marie Curie cancer collection box and helped himself to the cash.

The pair were spotted in a nearby burger bar shortly after the theft and police recovered the cash box from a toilet cistern there, said James McCracken, prosecuting at Worcester Crown Court.

Rivers, aged 24, of Kilvert Road, Hereford, had been given 80 hours' community work in June this year by magistrates, but failed to attend any of the sessions.

Judge John Cavell said it was difficult to see "how much lower you can stoop" to steal from a cancer charity.

A probation officer had reported that he had been "deviously misled" by Rivers into believing he would comply with the work order.

The judge said Rivers had failed to take advantage of the order and a further drug treatment and testing order. Custody was the only alternative left.

Gareth Walters, defending, said: "It was a mean little offence but not of the gravest severity."

He said Rivers, who admitted theft, had suffered drug abuse for years and had funded the habit through petty crime.

Rivers was given a three-month sentence in October for heroin possession and dishonesty. The four-month penalty will be added to it.