Stealing money from a Hamilton guest house while filling out a job application and taking a wallet from an unattended bag at a second guest house has landed repeat offender Saje Amiel Nearon back in prison for three years.

Nearon pleaded guilty to the thefts when he appeared at Magistrates? Court and appealed for leniency claiming the past year that he had been a free man was the longest he had been out of jail and, he claimed, showed he must have been ?doing something right?.

But Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner was not convinced and noted Nearon, 27, of Mount Hill, Pembroke, had failed to complete previous probation orders and drug rehabilitation.

Nearon and another man visited Waterloo House in Hamilton on September 22 and one of them had filled out a job application form. During the same morning one of the guest house managers had been dealing with cash takings at the guest house and placed around $760 and some travellers cheques in a Butterfield Bank bag for collection, explained Crown counsel Cindy Clarke. But when the money bags were due to be collected they could not be found and the manager realised the only other person who could have had access to them was the man who had filled in the job application earlier.

Meanwhile the same day, Nearon and another man paid a visit to the Edge Hill Manor guest house and enquired about making a booking for some friends. When the woman dealing with their enquiry briefly left the room to get some details a wallet containing $30 cash was taken from a bag left in the room, the court heard.

Nearon later admitted to Police he had committed the two thefts and, when he appeared in court, said: ?I?m a recovering addict, I?m a self-centred person, an angry person. I want to do things and be responsible to my community and give back to my community.?

Mr. Warner asked: ?How does that gel with breaking into tourist apartments??

Nearon said he had lapsed.

Mr. Warner reviewed Nearon?s past criminal record and said he had failed to benefit from pre-sentence reports, suspended sentences, court supervision orders or recovery programmes. He ordered that Nearon spend three years in jail ?where you can get all the drug treatment you need?.

As Nearon was led from the courtroom he said: ?That?s not going to help.?