A man who found a friend dead in his flat used his bank card several times before reporting the death to the police, a court heard.

Deputy District Judge Meirion Lewis-Jones, sitting at Llandudno magistrates’ court, told John Wynford Roberts: “Although the circumstances were not suspicious it was a despicable thing which you did.”

James Neary, prosecuting, said that on August 15 last year a police officer visited Roberts, 42, at his home in Seaview Road, Colwyn Bay, in connection with a different matter and found him to be fidgety.

He and another man were later seen on CCTV buying alcohol at a service station in Princes Drive and the following day bought items in the Bay Shopping Centre.

On August 21 Roberts visited Bangor police station and told officers: “I’ve come to hand myself in: there’s a body in my flat.”

When officers called at the flat they found a man’s partly decomposed body and when interviewed Roberts admitted using the card but didn’t want to talk about the death.

Mr Neary said that no action was taken against Roberts in connection with the body.

He pleaded guilty to fraud by using the contactless card to buy £170 worth of goods between August 15 and 17, and his solicitor Nia Dawson told the court he had shown genuine remorse.

“When he found his friend had died he went into an absolute panic,” she said.

The Deputy District Judge commented: “I can understand his shock at the death but using his card is something entirely different.”

The court heard that Roberts had no convictions between 1998 and 2016 but had since been addicted to heroin. However, he was no longer taking the drug and had a methodone prescription.

He was given a six-month community order to include 80 hours of unpaid work and drug rehabilitation sessions, with monthly reviews.

The judge told him: “It seems to me you are sa a point in your life when you have a number of choices to make. You now have a chance to try to kick that habit.

“There was clearly a considerable breach of trust in that he was a friend of your’s and although the circumstances were not suspicious it was a despicable thing which you did.”

At an inquest in January a conclusion of a drug-related death was recorded on 32-year-old Ioan Andreas Roberts, who had returned to North Wales after undergoing drug detoxification in South Wales.

The inquest in Ruthin heard that after going to the police station John Wynford Roberts was initially arrested on suspicion of murder.