By Mark Mackay

A DRUG addict who robbed a dead woman as she lay awaiting burial was yesterday detained for nearly six months.

A spate of robberies also saw Steven Smith (19) stake out a Perth church before robbing the priest’s adjoining home during mass.

Smith, formerly of Dunfermline, but whose address is now given as Greyfriars Hostel, Princess Street, Perth, was in the depths of heroin addiction at the time of the crimes, Perth Sheriff Court heard.

Shortly after the beginning of the service at St John’s Roman Catholic Church in Melville Street on October 9, a member of the congregation was aware of the accused leaving.

Later that morning chance brought them together again—Smith was spotted in the street by the same witness. He was seen to take what seemed to be a bundle of £5 notes from his pocket, before being lost to sight.

It had been discovered following the service that the window and door of St John’s presbytery had been smashed and £105 stolen from a bedroom.

The next day Smith broke into McEwans Funeral Home in Melville Street. There he stole a watch belonging to a deceased woman, who was being taken care of by an undertaker.

He removed the watch from a cabinet within the preparation room after the undertaker was called away.

Police officers later traced the accused in connection with the earlier theft, and he was found to also be in possession of the lady’s watch.

Solicitor Louisa Wade said the incidents occurred when her client was “heavily involved” in heroin and Valium.

“He was not really in his right mind at the time and can remember very little of these offences,” she said.

“The break-ins were substantially opportunistic, rather than pre-meditated.

“All the locations are quite close together and he stumbled upon the locations while in need of money to fund his habit.

“Heroin had taken over his life.”

Mrs Wade said her client was coming to terms with what was required to turn his life around and what would happen if he did not.

She said her client had already spent the equivalent of 60 days on remand in custody.

“His family in Dundee have cut off contact with him and as a result he was very much alone here in Perth,” she said.

“It was a frightening experience for this 19-year-old to be in prison with the long-term prisoners housed in the same wing.

“He had plenty of time to make some hard decisions, as this time was spent entirely without visitors.

“He knows his only hope for a better future is to break his addiction.”

In addition to these two incidents, Smith also pled guilty to a third robbery charge, also committed on October 10. He admitted breaking in to Bell’s Sports Centre in Perth and stealing two bottles of juice and a coffee machine and its contents.

Smith also admitted wilfully setting fire to a car within Matalan car park in Victoria Street, Perth, on November 18, 2004; and struggling with police officers later that day at police HQ in Barrack Street.

Together with the cumulative custodial sentence of 60 days, followed by four months and 12 days’ detention, Smith was ordered to pay compensation of £105 in relation to the robbery at St John’s Presbytery.

There was full recovery of money taken during the robbery at Bell’s Sports centre, amounting to £502.