THE boss of a man who collected stray golf balls for a living has spoken of his shock after he was jailed for theft.

Father-of-two Mark Collinson, aged 36, from Chorley, was caught by two policemen at a golf club in Leicester with two bags full of 1,000 balls.

Collinson, who has recovered golf balls for 10 years, was seen emerging from the golf club pond in the middle of the night dressed in his diving suit.

The police charged him with theft and now he is beginning a six-month prison sentence.

The ruling by Judge Richard Bray has sent shockwaves throughout the golfing world. One person who is horrified by the conviction is Gavin Dunnett, of UK Lakeballs.

The Adlington-based firm employed Collinson as one of a six-man team who supplied 10,000 lake balls to the firm. The 32-year-old marketing manager attacked the sentence as a "travesty".

He said: "The sentence is more suitable to someone dealing drugs. Mark has been making a living retrieving golf balls for us for 12 years and he has declared his job on his tax return."

Mr Dunnett has been amazed by the judge's ruling, which could set a precedent for future cases.

"In all the previous cases -- and there have been between six and 10 such cases in the last 10 years -- every judge and jury had dismissed the cases, saying the golf balls had been abandoned."

Officials at Bolton golf clubs said they do not let anyone recover golf balls which have been lost in lakes.

Steve Woods, captain of Great Lever and Farnworth Golf Club, said they tell their members not to buy golf balls from "outside agencies", and they recover their own balls from the lake twice a year.

And Brian Hamer, president of Deane Golf Club, said anyone coming onto the golf club to collect balls would be trespassing. They encouraged no one to come and recover balls from the golf course.