A DRUG addict faces jail after admitting stealing a priest’s wallet and a church collection box during a service.

Ian Jarvis shocked worshippers at St Mary’s RC Church, in Vart Road, Bishop Auckland, by appearing in front of the altar at a Penitential service on Wednesday night.

Visiting priest Father John Reid later found his wallet containing cards and £150 in cash had been stolen from his jacket hung over a chair in the adjoining sacristry.

Jarvis, 33, of Abbey Road, near the church, admitting stealing the wallet, and a collection box containing £2.30, when he appeared before south Durham magistrates sitting at Newton Aycliffe, on Saturday morning.

The court heard he had been “spaced out” after taking 14 Valium tablets and smoking two joints.

He did not remember being at the church.

He was spotted by a nearby resident who called the police after confronting him over his garden fence.

The neighbour took documents including the priest’s driving licence from his hand and could see a pile of coins and a small crucifix on the ground.

Forensic officers later found Jarvis’s fingerprints on two tins in the church kitchen.

Jonathan Bambro, prosecuting, said: “This burglary took place in a place of worship.

It is massively aggravated by Jarvis’s previous convictions.”

In mitigation, solicitor Claire Haig said that Jarvis had been upset by the death of his uncle last Monday and had taken an excessive amount of sleeping tablets.

She said: “He is a heroin addict on a methadone programme.

“His use of heroin has reduced significantly and his offending behaviour has reduced as well. He has managed to keep himself out of trouble for seven months.”

Magistrates remanded Jarvis in custody and sent him to Durham Crown Court for sentencing, after hearing he has other convictions for burglary and is subject to a 22- week suspended sentence order imposed last July.

Father Jonathan Rose, priest at St Mary’s, said about 40 people were in the church when Jarvis appeared out of the sacristry door in front of the altar.

He said: “He didn’t look well. His clothes were grey and his face was the same colour. He obviously didn’t know his way around or he would not have come through the door.

“People were very upset by it, particularly as Fr Reid was a guest. We had a number of visitors from other parishes and at first they thought he was an altar server. They didn’t expect this.”