A 40-year-old heroin addict was berated in court by his own mother yesterday after he admitted a stealing spree at the expense of his former employer.

Royston Place sat with his head in his hands in Magistrates? Court as his mother, her voice shaking with emotion, told him: ?You need to pay attention. You did the crime, no one else. You need to do the time.?

Place, of Town Hill Road, Smith?s, stole money, soda and other items from vending machines belonging to John Barritt and Sons after he was sacked as a service technician by the company on August 9.

He told the court yesterday that he was handed a set of keys which gave him access to vending machines across the Island by a former colleague.

Place claimed Keith Foggo threw the bunch of keys to him after telling him: ?I don?t like the way you got terminated. You still want to get paid by John Barritt?? Crown counsel Paula Tyndale said an employee at John Barritt and Sons reported that his keys went missing on the day that Place was fired.

Soon after, a vending machine at the Fairmont Southampton was found to have $500 missing and no sign of forced entry. On August 17, staff at Surf Side Beach Club in Warwick reported two suspicious males seen taking items from a vending machine.

On August 20, an employee at MASS Ltd. became suspicious when a man turned up unannounced to service a vending machine. ?The employee kept questioning him,? said Ms Tyndale. ?The man suddenly left the establishment without taking anything from the machine.?

She said Place was identified on security footage by Police though was not arrested for another two months, after he had taken more than $300 from a vending machine at St. George?s Golf Course.

He also took $60 from a machine at the Fairmont Hamilton and unknown amounts from machines at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute, the Bank of Butterfield and Appleby, Spurling and Hunter lawyers in Hamilton.

Police searched his home and found two sets of keys. Ms Tyndale said: ?He stated that he got them from a man not presently before the courts.?

She added that he told officers: ?It?s me and Keith Foggo in this.?

Place, who pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods and theft, told Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner he first started using heroin in his twenties and underwent a treatment programme with the help of his mother, a counsellor.

He left the Island to live overseas for 13 years but began using the drug again on his return. ?I came back to Bermuda and it?s like everything came crashing in on me,? he said. ?My mother would tell me: ?Royston, stop what you are doing. You are destroying yourself?.

?I?m slowly looking for the opportunity to get into some sort of programme to help myself because I have got a family that supports me 100 percent.?

Mr. Warner adjourned sentence until November 30 for social inquiry and substance abuse reports to be prepared. He remanded Place in custody, causing the defendant to start shouting angrily.

At that point, Place?s mother asked to address the court. She told Mr. Warner: ?I applaud you for what you have done.?

She turned to her son and said: ?Why should he give you the opportunity ... to come out and be assisted on your own terms? He gives you the opportunity to get better in a place where you can get better instead of sitting on your butt and not getting better.?

She told her son he should be grateful, rather than angry, for the opportunity he was being offered.