An Alness man was jailed for 27 months today after being found guilty of a string of dishonesty charges.
A jury found James Stewart, 28, guilty of three charges in Ross-shire at Dingwall Sheriff Court.
Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood told Stewart he has “appalling record” for dishonesty.
The jury took just over an hour to find Stewart guilty by majority of opening an ATM at the Bank of Scotland in Alness and illegally withdrawing £700 using a stolen credit card and PIN number.
He was found guilty of stealing the card, as well as a number of other bank cards and a quantity of cash on December 7, 2013 from a house in Tore on the Black Isle.
He was further found unanimously guilty of a third charge of being found in a house at Heathpark, Tore, with intent to commit theft on December 5, 2013.
Stewart was described as a prisoner at Inverness Prison, had been staying in Kirkside, Alness at the time of the thefts.
The sentence was backdated to December 11 last year when Stewart was remanded after his arrest.
Sheriff Fleetwood told him: “You have an appalling past record, particularly of dishonesty.
“There is no alternative to imprisonment.”
Earlier in the trial the court heard from Tore resident Fiona Gilmore, whose bank card had been used to access the ATM.
She told the court that she and her husband had not fully recovered from having her home broken into.
Mrs Gilmore told depute fiscal Michelle Molley: “We are both much more nervous and anxious than we were before.”
The court had been shown CCTV footage from the ATM which showed Stewart removing cash using the card at a time which matched withdrawals on Mrs Gilmore’s bank statement.
Stewart’s defence agent Graeme Paton said that his client had lived an “unsettled and chaotic lifestyle”, badly affected by heroin addiction.
He added: “He has had a difficult past but he knows now that some of his difficulties were of his own making.
“He has been taking steps to improve his ways and he is very keen not to return to his previous lifestyle.”