A “prolific offender” who ran up more than $8,000 on someone else’s debit card was today jailed for three years.John Charles Edwards, 43, of Ferry Road, St George’s, was called a “con man” for the second time in ten weeks by Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner this time after pleading guilty to 18 counts of obtaining property by deception.Edwards was last in Magistrates’ Court on April 12, when he received 12 months’ suspended sentence for two counts of the same offence.On this occasion Edwards used someone else’s HSBC card number between February 2 and May 14 to run up a total debt of $8,361.43.This included charging the Rosemont Guest Suites in Pembroke $1,778.88 for room service and accommodation, repeated charges to Upper Crust Pizza, and the purchase of a $588 PlayStation entertainment system.The account holder noticed the unauthorised transactions on May 17, and Edwards was arrested on June 20.Under interview, he told police he had a photographic memory for numbers, and kept the victim’s card number in his head since seeing it “long ago”.He used the card number to make purchases over the telephone; on other occasions he would tell shopkeepers he left the debit card behind and make a phone call to get the account number.Edwards also admitted to using the false names of Maxwell, and John Davis.He told Mr Warner that a “media blitz” following his April conviction had rendered him unemployable, and that there was no social services programme that could determine why he kept offending.Mr Warner told him: “You have conned your way from St George’s to Somerset.”Noting that Edwards’ previous record for such offences was “a book”, Mr Warner said the public needed to be protected from him.He activated Edward’s 12-month sentence, which had been suspended for a period of two years in April.He also sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment for each offence. All are to be served concurrently.