A COUPLE parked their car at Ribblehead Viaduct, near Ingleton, and returned 20 minutes later to find it had been broken into and a handbag stolen, heard Skipton magistrates.

A short time later, Mark Leroy Francis - who was subject to a suspended prison sentence at the time - was filmed on a Barclay's Bank CCTV camera 11 miles away withdrawing £60 from a cashpoint.

Francis, 30, denied stealing the bag, containing a bank card, passport and driving licence, and £30 in cash on November 13 last year and also to stealing £60 from the ATM machine in Hawes on the same day, claiming he had been wrongly identified from the bank's CCTV cameras.

But magistrates heard he had been 'instantly recognised' by a police officer shown images from the CCTV footage who with a colleague had searched him at a reservoir car park three days earlier.

Temporary Sergeant, Tom Ibbotson, told the court he had remembered Francis well because the search had taken ten minutes and because Francis had been quite aggressive, but mainly because of the 'shape of his head'.

Francis, who at the time had been on a six month prison sentence, suspended for two years, had a propensity for committing such offences, said magistrates.

Francis, of Barncroft Drive, Seacroft, Leeds, was committed for sentencing to Bradford Crown Court on October 17. He was allowed conditional bail in that he not enter North Yorkshire.