A hotel guest has been jailed for two months for not paying his bill at three different York guest houses.

Keith Allen, 34, met his match at his third hotel in four days when he cheated William Lefebve of the Bentley Guesthouse.

After he left, the owner and his friends tracked him down and handed him over to police.

He was on bail for stealing £276.86 worth of CDs from Borders in Davygate, York, in January.

Busking drug addict Allen, now of New Walk Orchard, off Fulford Road, York, pleaded guilty to three charges of obtaining services by deception and one of theft.

Magistrates jailed him for 60 days. They heard he had breached his bail conditions by changing address and not co-operating with the probation service who tried to write a pre-sentence report on him.

Prosecutor Jane Evans said that three times in one week Allen checked into a guesthouse and left the next morning without paying.

In total he cheated the three owners out of £146.50 in total on March 19, March 21 and March 22.

On January 30, a security guard at Borders became suspicious because of his behaviour at the shop's disabled toilets. When Allen left without paying, the guard followed and found he had CDs on him without their wrappers.

At an earlier hearing, magistrates heard Allen spent 20 minutes in the toilet where staff later found the CDs' wrappings and security tags.

For Allen, Harry Bayman said he was living in West Lothian at the time, but wanted to be in York because he had a young daughter in the city.

He tried staying at a hostel, but saw open drug use there. He was trying to reduce his own drug habit, so he went in search of other accommodation.

On March 19, he only realised he didn't have enough money to pay after he had entered the guesthouse, but hoping he could earn enough to pay by busking, stayed overnight.

He now had settled accommodation in the city.

Updated: 11:21 Friday, May 25, 2001