A persistent offender who admitted handling stolen jewellery was warned by a judge yesterday that he risked ending up an old man in Westgate unless he changed his ways.

Puisne Judge Charles-Etta Simmons told 46-year-old drug addict Norman Sonny Bell that he might have to go through the “revolving door” at the Dockyard jail ten more times before realising he had to stop committing crimes.

“You will know when you are ready to turn your life around,” she said. “If going through that door only one more time is what does it then congratulations to you.

“You are going to be an old man up there unless you say to yourself in the quiet of the morning: ‘I’m sick of this’. You are going to see your life just going around and around until you settle into an acceptance that you have to do it for yourself or an acceptance that you are going to be inside that revolving door for the rest of your life.”

The court heard that Bell handled a gold chain, three rings and a gold earring which had been stolen from a home. His attorney Narinder Dosanjh said he did not know the origin of the items, which he planned to sell for a friend for $20 each.

“Mr. Bell has described this as a big mistake,” she said, adding that he needed treatment for his addiction on the residential programme at Camp Spirit . “A custodial sentence is not going to work for Mr. Bell.”

Bell, of no fixed abode, told the Supreme Court: “I have a drug addiction that takes control of my whole life when I indulge in those drugs. I need help; I’m begging for help.”

But Mrs. Justice Simmons said he had not shown that he was serious about beating his drug problem. “I can’t waste the taxpayers’ money on a programme that you are not committed to,” she said.

Bell was sentenced to three years in prison and a previous two-year suspended jail term was invoked, to run concurrently. The time he has already spent in custody since January will be taken into account.