A NOTORIOUS charity box thief is starting his fifth jail sentence for stealing from good causes across Lancashire after being caught again.

Carl Mason was jailed for 12 months for stealing Poppy Appeal tins in Blackburn on no fewer than five occasions, before being caught on CCTV at the town's Santander branch and and identified by Lancashire Telegraph readers.

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Mason, now 32, is back behind bars for 12 weeks after stealing a charity box belonging to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, from the Queen Victoria pub in Burnley on September 28.

The thief, of Hobart Street, Burnley, was in breach of a conditional discharge, imposed by Preston magistrates, for similar offending in February and March of this year.

He has also been jailed repeatedly in the Preston area for stealing collection boxes for cancer charities left on pub bars.

But Mason, a long-time drug addict, is not the only thief currently serving custodial sentences for similar charity box snatches.

Gerrard Kevan Beier, 42, of Talbot Street, Burnley, appeared before Pennine magistrates and confessed to stealing three charity boxes belonging to the Royal Blackburn Hospital on August 14.

He was jailed for 12 weeks by magistrates because of the ‘gravity of the offences’.

In the latest incident, Shaun George Potter, 41, stole MacMillan, Child Action North West and Rosemere Cancer charity boxes from Bradley’s Sandwich Bar.

Potter, of Bolton Road, Blackburn, admitted burglary and theft when he appeared before the town’s magistrates and was given a 12-week prison term, suspended for 12 months and ordered to pay £140 compensation.

His lawyer, Peter King, said the door appeared to have been left open and his client wished to apologise to the three charities concerned.