FRANK Bryan enjoyed prison so much he kept on committing crimes in order to return there.

The shoemaker had begun offending in 1894, with housebreaking and larceny a speciality, and had spent about 20 years behind bars before his latest appearance at Souhampton Quarter Sessions in 1932.

This time he admitted breaking into a house in Glen Eyre Road, owned by the principal of the Southampton School of Art, and stealing jewellery valued at five guineas.

The prosecution called Detective Inspector Percy Chatfield, who outlined Bryan’s long list of previous convictions, which had resulted in sentences of five and eight years.

Though he had once been certified insane and detained in two mental institutions, his behaviour on remand at Winchester Prison had been exemplary, and doctors could find no evidence of insanity.

“The last few months he has been travelling around the country,” the officer explained.

The Recorder of Southampton, F M Schiller, pondered: “Is he more comfortable in Winchester?”

The detective said: “Quite”, to which the judge replied: “I am not surprised.”

The judge, however, was puzzled as to his motives.

Insp Chatfield told him: “He had many opportunities for stealing and going away but up to the time of his departure, so far as they were able to detect, he behaved like an honest man. In the course of many conversations I have had with him, it appeared that in none of his previous housebreaking adventures had he ever taken anything beyond the necessities of life.

“His philosophy seemed that if he was caught, he would live more or less comfortably in prison.”

Bryan got his wish – another six months in custody.