A Pickled Onion manager with a cocaine habit spent was imprisoned for stealing almost $4,500 from his employers.

Morris Michael Botelho, 37, of Knapton Hill, Smith?s, pleaded guilty to stealing a total of $4,358, and to uttering and falsifying documents.

Crown counsel Anthony Blackman told Magistrates? Court that he claimed to have stolen the money to support his drug habit. Mr. Blackman said he also had two like offences.

Lawyer Mark Pettingill said that Botelho had been receiving counselling and drug treatment at Benedict Associates, that he had made full restitution of the stolen funds and had a job lined up at a major hotel as its food and beverage manager.

But Acting Senior Magistrate Carlisle Greaves said he was going to lock him up.

He said: ?You have an Ali Baba history. If a man steals food for his family, we send him to prison. It is too much of this, I stole because I needed money for drugs. We are treating drug addicts like they are special citizens and giving them a slap on the wrist.?

Mr. Greaves jailed Botelho for six months with a further sentence of six months if restitution is not made in full.