A thief was fitted with an electronic tag on his prosthetic leg after being placed on a curfew following his conviction.
Ashton Sammut, 29,was fitted with the tracker after being deemed unfit for unpaid work, his original sentence, and then put on a four-week curfew instead.
Sammut claims he was asked ‘does it matter which leg it goes on?, by a worker from the Electronic Monitoring Service, which is run by Capita.
‘I thought it was a joke in bad taste,’ the father-of-one, who lost his left leg in a motorcycle crash, told The Sun.
Ashton Sammut was fitted with a tag after being convicted of theft. He was originally sentenced to unpaid work but was deemed unfit because of his disability
Sammut, from Grays in Essex, said he had to force himself not to laugh when he was fitted with the tag
The 29-year-old lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. He was given a curfew order instead of community service for his crime
‘The whole reason for the curfew was that I only have one leg and I couldn’t do the community service.
‘Then I thought, “What the Hell. Let’s see what he does”. He lifted up the false leg and warned me he needed to roll down the sock because the tag had to go on the skin.
‘I thought he’d realise then but he fitted the tag and asked me how it felt.’
Sammut said was told to walk around his home in Grays, Essex, to test the device, adding: ‘I had to force myself not to laugh.
‘I could have told him but I’ve let it go this far to highlight how ridiculous it is.’
An EMS spokesman said: ‘This is a rare situation. Strict processes weren’t followed. We’ve taken appropriate action to rectify.’