A JUDGE refused to heap praise on an drunken nuisance who claimed to have quit the booze – because he has spent the last month behind bars.

Darren Smith was keen to point out to Judge Howard Crowson from the dock of Teesside Crown Court that he had changed his ways.

The judge had just passed a four-month sentence which means Smith will be freed in around four weeks because of the time he has spent on remand.

He told the 34-year-old former soldier: “You won't be in custody very long, but don't come out and celebrate in what seems to be your usual way.”

Smith replied “I'm off the drink now, aren't I” but unimpressed Judge Crowson, referring to his enforced abstinence, said: “Well, you are now.”

The court heard how Smith was given an anti-social behaviour order in 2009 to stop him drinking in public and causing trouble in Middlesbrough.

He has breached it eight times and in August, twice in the space of a week, he again flouted the conditions – once lying on his back, drunk, in the road.

The following month, he was arrested with a bagful of lead which had been stripped from the roof of a building undergoing repairs in the town's Albert Park.

Smith, of Letitia Street, Middlesbrough, who had 138 previous offences on his record, admitted theft and two breaches of the asbo at earlier hearings.

His barrister, David Lamb, said: “They are relatively minor breaches at a persistent level . . . he is a nuisance rather than a career criminal.”