A crackdown on Regiment dodgers has landed four stay-away soldiers behind bars.

Gregory Roy Caesar, Kamar Jah-Rone Showers, Philip John Paiva and Christopher Daniel Fox were all sent to Westgate yesterday for 90 days each after admitting skipping their military duties.

Magistrates Court heard Caesar, 22, failed to attend 22 times between January and last month.

Crown counsel Nicole Smith said that Caesar was enlisted as a private soldier in October, 2004, and was expected to attend training sessions on a regular basis. The court heard he has one year and six months left to serve in the Regiment, and has offences of a previous nature.

Caesar, of Marsh Folly Road, Pembroke, said that he did not attend because of “family problems”.

Showers, 23, failed to attend 65 times in a one year spell from September 2005. Ms Smith said he was enlisted in November, 2003, but he said he skipped duties because he was homeless.

He told the court he had “nowhere to stay and was looking for work”.

Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner told the Southampton resident the army would have been the “perfect place” to find help.

“I did not think of that at the time,” replied the defendant, from Horseshoe Road, who was convicted of theft last month after stealing $225.

Pembroke resident Paiva, who was enlisted last December, admitted eight absences between April and October.

Asked why he failed to attend, the teenager replied: “I had a drug problem and I just did not care.”

He told the court he no longer had a drug problem after his parents helped him out, and had been to the Warwick camp a few times since the start of the month. Due to his poor attendance record, the defendant was told this summer to restart his first year after skipping 33 sessions.

Mr. Warner indicated the stay-away soldier had already been given a chance to make a fresh start — and sent the 19-year-old from Ferrars Lane to prison.

The final case yesterday also saw Christopher Daniel Fox jailed. The Sandys teenager missed 17 sessions between May and October. He joined the ranks last December.

Questioned on his absence, Fox told Mr. Warner there was “no legitimate reason”. Fox, 19, of Scott’s Hill Road, had been ordered to restart his first year last October after going AWOL 33 times, the court heard.

Speaking after the court hearing, a Regiment spokesman said people needed to be aware that failure to honour military commitments meant jail.

Spokesman Maj. Wayne Smith said: “It’s unfortunate that we have young men in this country who choose to disobey the law and refuse to serve their country. We do not like to have to take them to court, but we have to and we will continue to do so whenever people refuse to honour their commitments.”

He recalled former Regiment chief and current Government Minister, Senator David Burch, who said that conscription was a “small price to pay for living in paradise”.

Maj. Smith added: “All we are asking is for people whose names are called to serve three years and two months, meeting a commitment of one drill night a week and occasional weekend duties.”

He admitted absenteeism was a “challenge”, but did not have numbers to hand about the scale of the problem.

“We do not have 100 per cent attendance,” he stated. “But we will use whatever means are at our disposal to get everyone who’s enlisted to serve.

“People need to learn they are breaking the law by not coming to camp.”