A man who falsely claimed to have had his bank card stolen and money taken from his account has been sentenced to a 12-month community order.

Andre Lucien, 29 of Kings Road, South Norwood, claimed when he was away on a trip to Bristol on June 3 when somebody had broken into his room and stolen his debit card and passport.

Lucien told officers over £300 had been illegally withdrawn from cash points and he needed a crime reference number to pass on to his bank’s Debit Dispute Team.

But CCTV footage showed Lucien had made the transactions.

When officers arrested Lucien at his address, they also found the bank card, passport and clothing he was wearing, shown in the recovered CCTV footage as well as some cannabis.

Lucien was subsequently charged with fraud by false representation, wasting police time and possession of cannabis on July 6.

DC Matt Day, from Croydon Crime Integrity Team said: “Lucien thought that he could get money refunded back into his account by simply reporting that he’d been burgled to explain the loss of money.

“This sort of false reporting not only wastes police time, it also means that it diverts officers away from genuine crimes as well.

“Our message to anyone thinking about making a similar false report is to think again.

“Any burglaries or robberies that we believe have integrity issues are passed to the Crime Integrity Team and as we’ve shown with Lucien, if we find that a false claim has been made, then we will look to take further action against those individuals.”

Lucien was sentenced at Croydon Crown Court on Monday August 1 to a 12 month community order, 12 month supervision order, 12 month drug recovery programme, to pay £266.80 compensation to his bank and £75 costs to police and has been placed on a curfew, after he pleaded guilty to all above charges on July 19.