A DRUG addict told a judge he is determined to turn his life around after injuring a female member of staff in a robbery.

Gary McCready tried to rob the Tesco store at the Mayflower Retail Park in Basildon, resulting in his victim suffering a wrist injury.

The 36-year-old had gone to the store on December 23 last year and had queued up at the cigarette stand.

When the worker who was serving him opened the till to get money out, he grabbed her wrist as she collected the cash.

As he was restrained he became abusive, particularly at an off-duty officer.

When police arrived concerns were raised that McCready was going to spit at people, and he had to be fitted with a protective spit mask.

The staff member McCready attacked suffered redness to her wrist where he grabbed it, but did not suffer any further injuries.

McCready, of Partridge Green, Basildon, was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Thursday for attempted robbery.

Caroline Jackson, mitigating, told the court McCready had been offending since he was 17 and claimed his crimes were largely down to his addiction to Class A drugs.

She said that McCready was “extremely remorseful” of his actions and that he deeply regretted injuring a female member of staff.

Ms Jackson added that McCready had rekindled his relationship with his father, also a drug addict, and the relationship was now “positive” and had encouraged him that he could change his ways.

The court also heard that McCready had been on methadone, an opioid to help drug addiction, since being remanded and had managed to reduce his prescription.

Judge Andrew Hurst told McCready: “Your father has been through his own experience with you and has been a source of inspiration to you.

“On release you will find the world to be a very different place to that you left before Christmas.

“I do not wish to see you in my court again, or I will think that everything you said in your letter to me was a load of rubbish.”

McCready was given a two year suspended sentence and drug rehabilitation order