AN EARLY-WARNING system set up by hoteliers to tip each other off about tricksters helped to trap a man who had been booking bed-and-breakfast accommodation using false names, a court heard.

Harry Ferguson had successfully booked a number of rooms at hostelries in Harrogate and Knaresborough, but the police were called when he was viewed with suspicion after moving on to another Harrogate hotel, prosecutor Peter Scott told the town's magistrates.

Ferguson, 34, was recognised by staff at the Sherwood Hotel, in Studley Road, Harrogate, from a description passed on through the early-warning system from the Ebor Mount Guest House, in York Place, Knaresborough, and the Princes Hotel, in Granby Road, Harrogate.

Mr Scott said Ferguson, of Cambridge Street, Hull, had obtained bed-and-breakfast accommodation at the Ebor Mount last Friday and booked two rooms until Wednesday. At the Princes Hotel he had got bed and breakfast on Saturday and Sunday and asked for the same room to be available for use by three people on a further three nights.

Then he had gone to the Sherwood on Monday and tried to get bed and breakfast there, telling staff he also wanted three double rooms for six nights and one for seven nights.

Mr Scott said Ferguson had used false names and booked a variety of rooms without paying, telling staff they were for friends who were in the area working with him.

Ferguson, who pleaded guilty to two charges of deception and one of attempted deception, was remanded on bail until next Wednesday when the case is likely to be sent to Bridlington magistrates court where he has failed to answer bail on a similar charge.

His solicitor, Andrew Tinning, said Ferguson should have appeared in Bridlington on April 17. He now intended to plead guilty there and it would make sense for him to be sentenced for all the offences together.

The court hearing was welcomed today by Jim Dodds, chairman of the Harrogate Hotel and Guest House Association, whose 65 members participate in the early-warning system.

He said it was the second time in only two months that a trickster had been trapped by hoteliers tipping each other off.

"The message this should send out is that if someone tries to con a hotel in Harrogate once, the rest of the hotels will know very quickly about the fact," he said.

"And we will always prosecute."