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A homeless man has to pay £115 – after being locked up for falling asleep in the doorway of a hotel in Bath.

When 51-year-old Eli John James refused to leave the doorway of the Westgate Buildings Travelodge in Bath city centre on Saturday, December 9, he was arrested and dragged before the courts.

Two days later at Bath Magistrates Court James pleaded guilty to sleeping in the doorway without a reasonable excuse and was sentenced to three weeks in jail.

The court imposed a £115 victim surcharge.

Mr James, of no fixed address, was in violation of a criminal behaviour order imposed by Salisbury Court in May of this year when he refused to leave the Travelodge doorway.

Bath Magistrates Court also noted that the offence was so serious because of Mr James’s previous breaches of the order, and because the breach was aggravated by the defendant’s previous offending.

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