A NOTORIOUS Tarporley thug has once again walked free from Chester Crown Court despite committing a crime when he was subject to a suspended sentence.

Billy Perks of Tattenhall Road, Beeston, was arrested on June 16 just three months after he was handed a 32-week prison sentence, suspended for two years, for stealing and writing off a £27,000 Ferrari sports car.

The 20-year-old, who has been criminally active since he was 14, has a string of previous convictions and spent time in prison, pleaded guilty on the day of his Chester Magistrates Court trial to two counts of possession of Class A drugs and one count of resisting arrest.

Magistrates believed Perks’ crimes activated his suspended sentence so committed him to Crown Court for sentencing.

At the hearing on Monday, Joanne Clark, prosecuting, told the court Perks received the suspended prison sentence after he and three accomplices stole a Ferrari from a property in Nantwich on January 17, 2009, and crashed it the next morning – writing it off.

The court heard that on June 16 police officers arrived at Perks’ home to arrest him for a number of separate offences.

Miss Clark said: “He was drunk and started shouting at the officers.”

The court heard he resisted the officers placing his hands behind his back and dancing out of the way. When he was eventually arrested drugs were found in his pockets and in his bedroom. Tests later revealed it was cocaine.

Perks spent five weeks in custody during which police investigated the charges they had originally gone to his home to arrest him for – those charges were later dropped.

Paul Smith, defending, told the court: “His intention is to get his life on track. His father works in fencing, and it is his father who will assist him in setting up his own business.”

During the hearing, Judge Elgan Edwards debated with Mr Smith whether it was right to activate the suspended sentence when the charges against Perks were not driving offences or thefts and therefore unrelated to those he had previously been sentenced for.

Judge Edwards decided he would not activate the suspended sentence.

He sentenced him to a community order with 12 months’ supervision and ordered him to pay £340.

Judge Edwards warned Perks: “If you come back to this court, and if you come back before me, you will go to prison.”