Marco Pierre White Jr. has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for a number of offences, including racially abusing a Tesco security guard and shoplifting.
The son of celebrity chef Marco Pierre White entered a guilty plea to 14 charges relating to incidents between January 2021 and April 2022 in the Bath area.
The offences were shoplifting, possession of a knife, possessing heroin, and a racially aggravated public order.
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For those charges, the 27-year-old was sentence to 11 months, but he must also now serve 32 weeks of a previously suspended prison term, and those will be served consecutively.
Prosecutor Ieuan Callaghan told the court that the 27-year-old stole clothes with a value of £2,496 from Wadswick Country Store.
He added that police found him counting money in his car, whilst the clothes were not found.
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The former Big Brother contestant also pleaded guilty to racial abuse of a Tesco Express employee, an incident which led him to be banned from the shop.
He is also said to have stolen luxury items such as Ray-Ban sunglasses, bottles of alcohol from Waitrose, and a credit card holder from the high-end Mulberry store.
Other items he stole include dishwasher tables, alcohol, and toiletries from a Co-operative Store and newsagent Star News.
In his defence, Catherine Flint explained how difficult White has found his time in prison whilst on remand, partially because of his famous family name.
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She told the court: “His dad is well-known and known to be wealthy.
“He [White Jr] has suffered bullying, intimidation, extortion, threats of violence and actual violence.
“He is finding it incredibly difficult in prison. He is terrified at the thought of ever having to go back.”
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His solicitor explained that White has been suffering with heroin addiction since he was involved in a car crash at the age of 18.
She argued that despite having been offered drugs whilst in prison on remand, he has remained clean so far.
Miss Flint said that her client is ‘deeply ashamed’ after racially abusing the security guard, and would ‘very much like an opportunity from this court for another chance to try and get his life back on track’.
White has also been offered a chef position at his father’s restaurant upon his release, she added.
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Judge Mark Horton said: “It is addiction that causes intelligent people, from good backgrounds, who had every prospect, to cheat, lie and steal on a regular basis with a complete incapacity to stop doing so.”
White Jr. has been in trouble before in the past, including a conviction in January for shouting homophobic and racist abuse at police officers attempting to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly in a train station.
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Tom Wood