jailed this week.

The Royal Gazette has learned that Smith was dragged before Acting Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner late on Monday for failing to appear at two sex offender meetings earlier this month.

The probation hearing -- which was not attended by the media -- centred around Smith's apparent rejection of any responsibility for any wrongdoing. The timing of the hearing and a story in Tuesday's paper about the Crown losing its appeal against Smith's probation sentence was coincidental.

Mr. Warner jailed Smith on the recommendation of a probation officer who said the 54-year-old man was in "denial'' of his offence.

Smith, of Till's Hill, Pembroke, must now serve out behind bars the remaining 16 months of the two-year sentence imposed by Senior Magistrate Will Francis.

The Crown lost its appeal of Smith's sentence of two years' probation with counselling for sexual exploitation of a girl under 14-years in Hamilton Parish on May 17, 1997.

Sex pest jailed In the appeal, Chief Justice Austin Ward rejected prosecutors' attempts to have the sentence overturned on the grounds that it was "manifestly inadequate''.

Yesterday, The Royal Gazette reported that Smith was free after the appeal was rejected on November 23, a fact which was only learned on Monday.

But he was jailed this week, partly because he told probation officers he found the sex offender meetings a waste of time and expressed displeasure at being forced to attend the meetings in November.

And on two days earlier this month -- December 7 and 14 -- he failed to show up before Mr. Warner.