A CUSTOMER at Marks & Spencer helped himself to sherry while still inside the store, York magistrates heard.

Homeless Stephen Callaghan, 48, was so desperate to get a bed for the night, he insisted on security staff calling the police when they asked him to leave.

It was the latest in a series of crimes by the penniless ex-steel worker against York businesses, in a bid to get food and somewhere to sleep.

York magistrates locked him up for 14 days after Callaghan, a Scot who has no fixed address, admitted stealing an unknown quantity of sherry.

Valerie McMinn, prosecuting, said Callaghan took some food and the sherry from a shelf in Marks & Spencer in central York at about 4pm on Wednesday.

Then he went to the sandwich department and started drinking the alcohol. He drank about half the bottle before security staff intervened and asked him to leave. But he refused and they called police. "Am I in time for tea?" he asked the officers.

Mark Thompson, defending, said Callaghan regularly ate meals in restaurants when he had no money to pay, so that he could get himself arrested and spend a night in a police cell.

On Wednesday, a restaurant owner had turned him away at the door, so he went to Marks & Spencer to get himself arrested.

Callaghan used to have a job, family and home in Scotland, but had lost all three through family difficulties and had started travelling. The court heard that Callaghan had 151 previous convictions, the last of which was earlier this week.

Updated: 11:27 Friday, March 15, 2002