{"id":16621,"date":"2017-02-10T16:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T16:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=16621"},"modified":"2017-02-10T16:00:31","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T16:00:31","slug":"exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">AN EX-PROFESSIONAL footballer today lost an\u00a0appeal in Cardiff to lower the\u00a0prison sentence imposed after he was convicted for the 64th time for shoplifting.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benjamin Savage, 44, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates Court last September 3 to shoplifting several items including two Oral-B toothbrushes at a Home Bargains store on Albany Road.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cardiff Crown Court heard today that he walked to\u00a0the store at 4.15pm with a silver mountain bike, then put items into a black bag before leaving without paying.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr Savage, who suffers from depression and bipolar disorder, had originally pleaded not guilty \u2013 saying that he did not remember the incident and could not even ride a bike. However, he changed his plea after CCTV footage was released.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had been an aspiring professional footballer, signed to play for Cardiff City, Southampton and Wimbledon before suffering a leg injury which ended his career.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The court heard he had then fallen into a bad crowd and developed a heroin addiction which fuelled his long criminal history, being convicted 64 times for shoplifting and similar offences.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr Savage has undergone rehabilitation at Cardiff Addiction Unit and found employment. His defence argued that his sentence should be lowered based on his guilty plea and the efforts he was making to change his life.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, Judge Crowther said that while he had sympathy for Mr Savage\u2019s background and plight, he did not see anything wrong with the custodial sentence given by the magistrates.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr Savage had already received two suspended sentences for shoplifting last year. He was convicted of stealing over \u00a3200 worth of cosmetics from a Boots store and was also convicted for shoplifting 10 cans of coffee worth \u00a345 from Co-op on Crwys Road.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Magistrates court imposed\u00a0the maximum six-month custodial sentence,replacing the 12 and eight- week suspended sentences he had already received.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AN EX-PROFESSIONAL footballer today lost an\u00a0appeal in Cardiff to lower the\u00a0prison sentence imposed after he was convicted for the 64th time for shoplifting. Benjamin Savage, 44, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates Court last September 3 to shoplifting several items including two Oral-B toothbrushes at a Home Bargains store on Albany Road. Cardiff Crown Court heard today that he walked to\u00a0the store at 4.15pm with a silver mountain bike, then put items into a black bag before leaving without paying. Mr [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":16645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-16621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"AN EX-PROFESSIONAL footballer today lost an\u00a0appeal in Cardiff to lower the\u00a0prison sentence imposed after he was convicted for the 64th time for shoplifting. Benjamin Savage, 44, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates Court last September 3 to shoplifting several items including two Oral-B toothbrushes at a Home Bargains store on Albany Road. Cardiff Crown Court heard today that he walked to\u00a0the store at 4.15pm with a silver mountain bike, then put items into a black bag before leaving without paying. Mr [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-02-10T16:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1834\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cathyduncan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cathyduncan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/\",\"name\":\"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-02-10T16:00:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1834,\"caption\":\"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/\",\"name\":\"The Cardiffian\",\"description\":\"Just another JOMEC Sites Network site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1\",\"name\":\"cathyduncan\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/d4d0895f6e1f7ccb86d04236a870a18b\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"cathyduncan\"},\"description\":\"Lecturer, Cardiff University News Journalism MA. Bristolian based in Cardiff but Swansea Til I Die.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.cardiff.ac.uk\/people\/view\/381934-duncan-cathy\",\"https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/cathy-duncan-6b91459\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/cathyduncan\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/author\/cathyduncan\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian","og_description":"AN EX-PROFESSIONAL footballer today lost an\u00a0appeal in Cardiff to lower the\u00a0prison sentence imposed after he was convicted for the 64th time for shoplifting. Benjamin Savage, 44, pleaded guilty at Cardiff Magistrates Court last September 3 to shoplifting several items including two Oral-B toothbrushes at a Home Bargains store on Albany Road. Cardiff Crown Court heard today that he walked to\u00a0the store at 4.15pm with a silver mountain bike, then put items into a black bag before leaving without paying. Mr [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/","og_site_name":"The Cardiffian","article_published_time":"2017-02-10T16:00:31+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1834,"url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"cathyduncan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@cathyduncan","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"cathyduncan","Estimated reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/","url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/","name":"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal - The Cardiffian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2017-02-10T16:00:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2017\/02\/crown2-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1834,"caption":"OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2017\/02\/10\/exclusive-ex-professional-footballer-loses-appeal\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Exclusive: Ex-professional footballer loses appeal"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/","name":"The Cardiffian","description":"Just another JOMEC Sites Network site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/41c76b1e66d8cf6e57cba8550c3772b1","name":"cathyduncan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/d4d0895f6e1f7ccb86d04236a870a18b","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7cd1b1b63598c25c15d3e0d390366ec2ba1c99865b1a23c34339be8c5c396a81?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"cathyduncan"},"description":"Lecturer, Cardiff University News Journalism MA. Bristolian based in Cardiff but Swansea Til I Die.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.cardiff.ac.uk\/people\/view\/381934-duncan-cathy","https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/cathy-duncan-6b91459","https:\/\/x.com\/cathyduncan"],"url":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/author\/cathyduncan\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16621"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=16621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}