A Corsham man who stole hundreds of pounds from people's credit cards has been jailed for nine months.

Timothy Harker rummaged through bins at Buckley Barracks to get discarded receipts which he used to transfer money into his account.

But after hearing how the Falklands veteran who served in the RAF for more than a decade had previous convictions for deception and theft a judge sent him to prison.

Colin Meeke, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court that in April 2003 a Mr Sneddon complained his debit card had been used to make payments into a City Bank account.

When the matter was looked into it was found the money had been transferred into Harker's account.

Mr Meeke said a significant number of other transactions crediting the account from debit and credit cards were also uncovered.

He said the police caught up with Harker in January this year and he was arrested for various matters of deception.

He told officers he was a driver at the barracks, which used to be RAF Hullavington, and he would scour the bins for credit card slips containing the complete card numbers on them.

Then, using his telephone account, he would credit himself with money from the cards, taking a total of £1,904.

He said he only took fairly small amounts ranging from £25 to £100 so his actions were not spotted for a while.

Mr Meeke said: "He acknowledged at some point he stole a credit card from the mail slots at Buckley Barracks.

"He also obtained the PIN number and withdrew £750 from the account. It was also used at Sainsbury's in Chippenham."

The court heard in 1995 Harker was jailed for five months when he was a postman and took mail to look for credit cards.

Then in 2000 he was jailed for more deceptions involving buying goods over the telephone with stolen credit card numbers.

Harker, of Pockeredge Road, Corsham, pleaded guilty to three thefts, eight counts of dishonestly retaining wrongful credits and asked for 42 other matters to be taken into consideration. The offences dated from July 2002 through to last December.

Marcus Davey, defending, said his client was honest about what happened, saying he simply fell prey to temptation.

Harker, he said, had served in the RAF for 10-and-a-half years, seeing action in the Falklands, leaving the forces in 1989.

He said the total loss over all the offending was just over £2,500.