A FAMILY man who became addicted to the drug spice in prison later burgled a dead person’s home looking for the drug. 

A letter from Lee Scott’s partner and the mother of his two children read to Judge Graham Knowles QC outlined the devastating impact the drug had on the young family.

Before reading the letter to the court, Scott’s defence barrister Andrew Scott said that drugs had become his client’s ‘demon’ after he became addicted to spice while serving a spell behind bars at HMP Preston. 

The court heard how Scott, 30, who was described by Judge Knowles QC as an ‘intoxicated fool’, had been clean from the drug for 18 months after his release, but relapsed after a family illness. 

In the letter, his partner said Scott had become ‘unrecognisable’ during the period he was addicted. 

It said: “Your honour, I am writing this letter to try to explain this is not the Lee Scott that I have grown to love over the last 12 years. 

“I know a completely different person. Yes, he has been in trouble in the past but that was before we started our family. His daughter is now three and they have an amazing relationship. She really misses him and believes that he is away at work. 

“They speak daily on the telephone. He also has a six-month-old son who he has not had the chance to hold yet. 

“While I was pregnant with our son, Lee’s mother suffered a stroke. The changes in him were happening fast. He stopped caring about himself or anyone else. Lee, the father of my children, was gone. 

“I couldn’t recognise the person he was anymore and unfortunately this happens to people we love when drugs consume their lives.

“Hanging out with the wrong people and making very poor decisions. Lee Scott on drugs and Lee Scott sober are two completely different people.”

Scott went to Dunoon Drive in Burnley in November believing he could get spice from someone he knew on the street.

However when Scott entered a property he was confronted by the dead householders’s son, who tackled him to the ground.

Addressing Scott, who appeared at Preston Crown Court via videolink from prison, Judge Knowles said: “If what I have heard about you from counsel and your partner is true, and I accept that it is, no punishment I can give you can be worse for you than hearing what your partner has written. 

“She has been sitting here in tears while that has been read out and you, no doubt, think every day of her and your children. 
“I also hope you think every day of the man whose father’s home you burgled as well in his grief - you now know yourself the grief a son feels upon the death of his father. 

“This is the 45th time you have been sentenced and you have 76 offences on your record.”

He continued: “It is quite obvious from the statement of the victim, Matthew Ginley, that you had regularly been at his father’s house visiting his brother there. His father died, you went round looking for drugs. If you didn’t know before that day it was obvious when you arrived that the house was being cleared. 

“You got aggressive, or looked aggressive and unhappily for you Mr Ginley had been a bouncer for years and so knew exactly how to deal with some intoxicated fool and he put you on the floor. 

“You didn’t like it, and in my view a degree of revenge motivated you here, not just the desire for drugs. 

“You targeted these premises knowing the man who lived there had died and his son was grieving his death.”

Scott, of Hargher Street, was jailed for three years and four months.