A convicted black thief given a job at the British Ministry of Justice as part of a rehabilitation program has been jailed for nine months for stealing from his colleagues

Andre Lake, 27, who was given the second chance at the government department, used his pass to sneak into his co-workers' offices and steal a wallet and two BlackBerry phones. He also broke into a store cupboard and stole eight more BlackBerrys, worth £125 each. Nine days later he was fired and arrested for staging a bomb hoax so he could get the day off work. Lake, who at the time was serving a suspended sentence for burglary, was given an 18-month community order with supervision and 200 hours of unpaid work for the bomb scare in November 2010. The administration officer in the Youth Justice Office had been employed through the offenders rehabilitation project on June 14, 2010. He first used his pass to sneak into his co-workers' office and stole a wallet containing bank cards, driving license, and a season ticket. A few days later he went into a technician's office and stole the two mobiles that were lying on his desk. Then, he made his way into the store cupboard and took eight BlackBerrys belonging to the Ministry of Justice. But managers were able to trace him as the culprit on all occasions as he used his personal pass to swipe his way into the crime scene. Lake of Harrow, North London, pleaded guilty to the three charges of thefts. It was his security pass which also identified him as the hoax bomb caller. Lake made two calls to the police from the office, one claiming that there was a bomb and the second posing as the building's head of security and demanding to know where the emergency services were so he could go home early. In August 2009 Lake was given a nine-month sentence suspended for two years after he was convicted of kicking down the door of a residential property and ransacking it for valuables alongside an accomplice. The father-to-be was caught leaving the house with a stolen watch and marigold gloves to cover his fingerprints in his pocket but was given a chance by the MoJ. Three months of the suspended sentence was activated and Lake was given six-month concurrently for the thefts.