Middlesbrough judge tells beggar jail 'may save your life' Published duration 26 April 2018

image caption Bradley Grimes said going to hospital was "not going to happen"

A judge has told a homeless man with a brain tumour jail could save his life.

Bradley Grimes, 23, who begs outside bars and restaurants in Middlesbrough, has been sent to prison for breaching conditions of a suspended sentence.

Judge Sean Morris said: "Twelve months jail should be should be enough time for you to receive treatment as an outpatient and it may save your life."

The drug addict refuses treatment and told Teesside Crown Court there was "no chance" he would go to hospital.

Judge Morris told him: "When you are clean of heroin you might take a different view."

Grimes made the national press in November when he asked to be sent to jail for his birthday after spending six months sleeping in shop doorways.

image caption Grimes said he was once arrested while sitting against this bus stop

He has since been repeatedly arrested for begging and entering town centre areas.

He was forbidden from doing so as part of the conditions of a suspended prison sentence for possessing a knife and breaching community orders.

The court heard he has previously breached anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) 58 times.

Judge Morris ordered prison authorities to make sure Grimes is taken to Newcastle's Freeman Hospital where a consultant has offered to treat him.

Grimes' medical reports should go with him to Holme House Prison in Stockton, he ordered.

They include details of an MRI scan showing the tumour discovered in 2012 is still growing, the court heard.

image caption Grimes said he often used to sleep here, near the side of a busy road

Grimes became homeless when he left the care system aged 17.

In November he told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme he had to beg "in order to survive".

Asbos banning him from "loitering" outside business premises prevented him from "basically sitting outside a shop" and sleeping in doorways for warmth, and meant he was continually arrested, he said.