A FORMER aerospace engineer who left a restaurant near Colchester more than £100 out of pocket “dined and dashed” in order to impress his partner, a court heard.

Alan Rogers, 46, caused £2,325 in losses to 18 separate businesses after dining out before leaving without paying.

He took his partner for “lengthy dinners” at venues around East Anglia to impress her, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

Richard Potts, prosecuting, said the 46-year-old would “proffer payment cards which were not going to be honoured, or honoured only in part”.

He said the overall loss to hospitality venues was £2,325.66, hitting 18 individual businesses.

Judge Emma Peters told Rogers: “These businesses were desperate, their very survival was on the line and you took advantage.”

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She said the offences happened between January and October last year, with four of them pre-dating the first lockdown and the rest afterwards.

The judge noted that Rogers and his partner were the first customers that one venue had had after re-opening.

The Barn Brasserie in Great Tey, near Colchester, was conned out of £146.55 in August last year.

Rogers, of Market Place, Hadleigh, admitted three counts of fraud by false representation at an earlier hearing and asked for 15 other matters to be taken into consideration.

Mr Potts said it was not suggested that the defendant’s partner was responsible for offending “but was present at a number of incidents”.

Nicola May, mitigating, said: “There was an element of trying to impress his partner.

"There was an element of escapism.”

She said there had been a decline in his mental health at the time and that Rogers apologised for the harm he had caused.

She said he had voluntarily given up his job to care for his father who has Parkinson’s and is now in a care home.

Rogers trembled and appeared tearful as he was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Rogers was arrested, along with a 43-year-old woman from Sudbury, in Ipswich last November on suspicion of making off without payment.