A groundsman has been jailed for six months for the ’mean’ theft from a close friend and a charity.

Jonathan Fflinlo Pressley, 37, stole £16,850 from a friend’s gardening company.

And he stole building materials from the Home of Rest for Old Horses, where he worked as a groundsman - and even used his boss’s husband’s vehicle to drive them to his home.

Jailing him for six months, Deemster Alastair Montgomerie told him: ’If I were to describe your offending in one word I would say this was "mean".’

Prosecutor Rebecca Cubbon told the Court of General Gaol Delivery that the manager of the Home of Rest for Old Horses had returned from holiday on March 13 this year to be informed that a number of fence posts had gone missing.

CCTV identified Pressley as the culprit and even showed him using her husband’s vehicle to transport them.

The defendant was arrested and during a search of his home in Alberta Drive, Onchan, the missing fence posts were located.

During police interview, Pressley said in a prepared statement that he had wanted to ask permission to take the items but the manager had been away.

He claimed he was owed money for items he had not been paid for.

The defendant had known the victim of his other theft for six years through his employment at the Old Horses’ Home and was regarded as a close friend.

Pressley offered to look after the accounts of his friend’s gardening business on a voluntary basis and was given access to signed blank cheques.

But when his victim looked through the bank statements of his company account he noticed outgoings he had not authorised.

In total, eight cheques had been made to the defendant’s own bank account, for sums ranging from £950 to £3,000.

Miss Cubbon told the court that Pressley had used the funds to pay for his lifestyle.

Defence advocate David Reynolds recognised both offences were a serious breach of trust.

He said the theft of building materials was not a sophisticated offence. And in relation to the theft from the gardening business, he had initially been trying to help a friend but had then ’over-stepped the mark’.

Mr Reynolds said his client has had mental health issues for many years and has now been diagnosed as bipolar.

Pressley admitted stealing £16,850 from the gardening business between August 1 last year and February 15 this year and the theft of building materials of an unknown value between February 1 and 14 this year.

The Deemster accepted his remorse was genuine but said there were no sufficient reasons to suspend the sentence.

He jailed for five months for the theft from the gardening firm and a further one month for the theft from the Old Horses' home, with the two sentences to run consecutively.