A judge has put off passing sentence on a Devizes man who robbed the same victim on two occasions after hearing he was in hospital following a suicide bid.

Rhys Carey was due to appear at Swindon crown court after admitting carrying out the muggings six weeks apart.

But the 22-year-old's solicitor told the judge his client was being treated by medics after the attempt on his life.

Martin Wiggins, defending, asked for the case to be adjourned so he could get a psychiatric report on his client before he was sentenced.

Judge Douglas Field adjourned the case to August 9 to give time for a report to be compiled.

Carey, of Bath Road, Devizes, initially pleaded not guilty to two charges of robbery but changed his pleas to admit what he had done.

He carried out the first offence on Gipsy Lane, Swindon, on September 10, taking £15 from the man.

The following month, on October 19, he stole £4 from the same man in the second incident.

In 2010 he was jailed for two years after admitting two robberies, including one on an 84-year-old woman with learning difficulties, and three thefts.

He got away just a few coppers and the old lady's knitting after pulling so hard on her bag she was sent crashing to the ground.

Carey, then a teenager living in Chippenham, also targeted other users of a day centre for people with learning difficulties in Swindon, robbing and stealing from them.

At that hearing the court was told Carey had Asperger’s syndrome, and learning difficulties, having suffered hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, as a child.