AN electrician who changed his name to hide his criminal record and trick a hospital into giving him a job has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Salisbury Crown Court heard how Jason Lomax, 43, of Longleaze, Andover, changed his name to Bevan Davis following his release from prison in 2006.

He then applied for a job at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester as an electrician under his new name, fraudulently claiming that he had no previous convictions, when in fact he had 29.

The hospital accepted the application on face value and background checks uncovered no trace of Davis’s record.

He worked at the hospital for nine months before losing his job.

Now Davis’s lies have caught up with him, after he was sentenced to nine months behind bars.

Judge Richard Hill said: “The reason that spent convictions have to be disclosed is to protect potentially vulnerable people in hospital.

“If you conceal that, you deprive them (the employers) of making an informed decision.

“What you did goes against rules that are there for the protection of vulnerable people. I regard it as a serious matter.”

Davis was also sentenced to a further six months in prison for stealing a £25,000 Land Rover Discovery, to which he had previously pleaded guilty.

He kept the car after failing to keep up with the hire-purchase payments.

“I’m quite satisfied it was a calculated theft and not compulsive,” said Judge Hill.

Davis still owed around £16,000 when he stole the car on October 1 2010.

Judge Hill suspended the 15-month sentence for two years, adding that Davis had led a “law-abiding life”

since the offences were committed.

He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.