A MAN whose life had been blighted by tragedy turned to drugs and then crime to fund his addiction.

But defence lawyer Sarah Perkins told Blackburn magistrates that Brian Shaun Collins was not a "bad man", despite his lengthy record.

She told the magistrates how things had first started to go wrong for Collins when he was just 20 years old and his pregnant girlfriend was strangled by a patient in the mental hospital where she worked.

He was diagnosed as having HIV in 1998 and recently a friend, also diagnosed as having the illness, had committed suicide.

"These and other tragic events have had a profound affect on my client over the years," said Miss Perkins. "It is true to say he has turned to drugs to combat depression but, in between, there have been long periods when he has been drug-free and, consequently, offence free.

"He is not an inherently bad person and I would ask you to give him a chance to prove himself," she said.

Collins, 37, of the Salvation Army Hostel, Heaton Street, Blackburn, pleaded guilty to stealing a watch from T J Hughes on August 22, a bottle of whisky from Morrisons on September 3 and a £30 watch from Debenhams on September 4.

The court was told that he had been made subject to probation orders in March and April and given a conditional discharge in March.

The magistrates sentenced him to 14 days in prison which, because he has been remanded in custody for five days, means he will be released on September 28.

Miss Perkins told how the brutal murder of his girlfriend had a profound affect on Collins who had started to take drugs.

He sorted himself out and there was then a five-year period when he was offence-free. Illness forced him to stop work and he again turned to heroin and there were offences on his record between 1988 and 1993.

He received a prison sentence in 1993 for robbery but following that there had been another five-year period during which he had been offence-free.

"In 1998 he was diagnosed as having HIV and at that stage he basically gave up," said Miss Perkins. "He lost his home, attempted suicide, became depressed and again started taking drugs."