A SERIAL public nuisance is back behind bars after breaking the law once again.

No stranger to the courts or custody, court staff are well aware of the behaviour of Shaun Scanlon, with him appearing before magistrates on countless previous occasions.

The 47-year-old is the subject of a criminal behaviour order, which are imposed to tackle the most serious and persistent anti-social.

But he flouted this order and found himself hauled before Chester Magistrates’ Court, where he was subsequently sent back to jail.

The facts of the case were outlined in court by Lionel Cope, on behalf of the prosecution, who spoke of how Scanlon’s criminal behaviour order was imposed in September last year.

It prohibits him from entering Warrington town centre, as defined by a map, without reasonable excuse.

The defendant breached this order twice, once on February 2 and once on February 4, and on the former, he also assaulted a police officer doing his job on Winwick Street.

Scanlon’s criminal record is vast and well known, with him being jailed in July last year for being drunk and disorderly in public and spitting in his police cell.

Before then, he was locked up for 12 weeks in February last year for assaulting a shopkeeper by putting him in a headlock.

He was previously jailed for threatening to stab a friend while intoxicated and brandishing two kitchen knives.

He also has convictions for carrying knives in separate incidents and smashing a window at the Firkin Tap pub on Buttermarket Street.

For his latest spell of offending magistrates considered his guilty pleas but concluded that only an immediate custodial sentence without suspension was appropriate.

This took into account the severity of his offending, the fact that he offended shortly after his release from prison and his criminal record, which includes previous breaches of court orders.

Scanlon, whose address on court documents was given as Winmarleigh Street, was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison.