A Southampton man who admitted prowling said he was collecting aloe to treat his ailments.

Steven Raynor, 53, was arrested on September 27 after the residents of a Colony Lane home saw him on their property that evening. Police responded to the report and saw Raynor running off of the property with a bucket in his hand.

Asked what he was doing, he told the officers: “Picking aloe.”

He told Magistrates’ Court: “I apologise to the court and the people for being on their property. It’s not a time to be there without asking, but in my neighbourhood it’s the only place I know I can get aloe and there’s so much I didn’t think they would miss it.”

Raynor also admitted a second count of prowling around a different Southampton property on June 30.

Prosecutors said that the previous night, the residents of a Riddell’s Bay Road home spotted Raynor on their property after he triggered a motion-sensitive light.

The residents told him not to return to the property and did not press charges. The following night they returned home and again saw him outside the home.

Raynor said: “I watch all these people come into my neighbourhood over the years and it’s not good that they don’t know me.

“I would sit in their yard and smoke marijuana for a couple of hours and go home.”

He added that he returned to the property the second night because he had left a package there on the first.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo ordered a social inquiry report on Raynor and released him on $2,000 bail with the condition that he avoid the properties.

Mr Tokunbo added: “The fact that you have lived in the area for a long time and people are coming and going is no excuse for you to venture onto their property, take their aloe and use it. You cannot do it.”

Raynor is expected to return to the courts on November 23 to be sentenced.

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