A CONMAN who staged a massive series of offences including house-breaking and defrauding the Celtic Manor Hotel was yesterday jailed for five years.

Adrian Knight, 40, was described by Recorder Stephen Hopkins, QC, at Cardiff crown court as a "dishonest pariah".

He admitted a total of 32 offences involving burglary, receiving stolen credit cards, obtaining property by deception, and attempting to obtain property by deception. Defence Counsel Peter Davies said Knight, of Brachdy Road, Newport, had an "unrelenting record" which started when he was a teenager.

Prosecutor Caroline Rees said that in July 2001, after appearing before Worcester magistrates, Knight was on his way to Cardiff when he stopped off in Monmouth and committed the "brazen offence" of burgling a house in Dixton Road at lunchtime.

The householder, Michael Phillips, was watching television when he heard floorboards creaking.

On the landing was the defendant, who asked if he could obtain bed and breakfast for the night. He then calmly walked out, got into his car and drove away.

Miss Rees said he had stolen a camera and a wallet, including credit cards. She said that later the defendant used stolen credit cards to obtain many cinema tickets for the UCI UK and petrol.

On an earlier occasion, she said, he had received bank cards stolen from a hotel and shop in Bath and used some of them to conduct a phone transaction with Celtic Manor Resort to dishonestly obtain tickets for a Wales Open golf tournament.

The tickets, worth £297, were sold in a pub in Cardiff for £30. He also attempted to obtain further tickets, but when he went to the hotel to collect them in his Vauxhall Tigra, he was arrested.

The Recorder ordered that that vehicle be forfeited. In addition, said Miss Rees, he fraudulently obtained tickets with stolen credit cards for a Tina Turner concert in Cardiff and for concerts in Wembley Stadium.

The court heard he had 57 previous convictions for dishonesty, including offences of burglary and theft.

The Recorder said the worst offence was the "walk-in burglary" of the house in Monmouth, where an innocent occupier was disturbed.

He told him: "You are a thoroughly dishonest man. Decent, honest, hard-working people are entitled to be protected from you."