An habitual cycle thief yesterday has had an appeal against his three year prison sentence rejected.

Kimlo Charles Dwight Webb, 33, pleaded guilty to the charge of cycle theft in Magistrates' Court last August. Usually the maximum sentence which can be imposed in Magistrates' Court for such an offence is 12 months imprisonment.

But with a record stretching back to 1982, Acting Magistrate Carlisle Greaves decided Webb should be sent to the higher Supreme Court for sentencing, where he was given a three year jail term.

Although agreeing that the decision by Mr. Greaves to send Webb up to Supreme Court for sentencing was fair, and that his client deserved to have a longer sentence imposed, lawyer Patrick Doherty argued that the three-year sentence was too significant a jump from the nine month sentences Webb had previously served for similar offences.

Mr. Doherty said his client was being sentenced based on his record and not based on his crime.

"I would suggest an 18-month sentence," he said. "There certainly should be more time in the sentence, I can't argue with that, but not something more than three times the sentences previously received."

However Presiding Justice Edward Zacca was not convinced.

"He obviously has an affinity for stealing bikes," he said, noting that the offence in question had in fact occurred while Webb was out on bail for another similar offence - something he perceived as an aggravating factor. "He should be locked away for a very long time, shouldn't he?

"Don't you think the good, right-thinking people of Bermuda would be very unhappy if he was given nine months or a year," with the possibility of committing further - more serious - offences, he asked Mr. Doherty.

Crown counsel Vinette Graham-Allen stuck to her guns, calling Webb's history of offences "horrific". The appeals board agreed.