A tourist had a "very terrifying experience" when he awoke in his camper van to find a man munching his Pringles.

Stuart White insisted he was a loyalist and not a thief after helping himself to the savoury snacks in the early hours of the morning after the Twelfth of July.

However, when 27-year-old White, from Main Street, Lisbellaw, appeared at Fermanagh Court he admitted stealing 250 euro from tourist Stephen Doyle and was jailed for four months.

A prosecutor explained that at approximately 2.45am on Wednesday, July 13, Mr. Doyle was travelling through Enniskillen in his camper van on his way to catch a ferry in Belfast. He was getting tired so he pulled into the car park of the South West College at the Derrychara Link. He fell asleep but was awakened around 4am by "someone talking gibberish". White was sitting in the front of the vehicle eating his Pringles. Mr. Doyle noticed that his holdall had been tampered with and discovered that five or six 50 euro notes were missing from his wallet. White denied taking the money, and bizarrely offered Mr. Doyle a pot plant and left.

The court heard that around 15 minutes later police came upon White in the nearby grounds of the Belmore Court Motel with a bottle of vodka in his hand. When the police asked him where he had been, he admitted being in the camper van and eating the Pringles but denied doing anything wrong. He claimed he had been invited into the camper by two men who gave him the impression it belonged to them.

The prosecutor said that on July 16, White arrived at Enniskillen Police Station and handed over 250 euro, saying he had been wrongfully accused of stealing the money. He claimed he had been approached by an unidentified associate from the underworld who arranged for the two men who had invited him into the camper to leave the cash in a telephone box for him to collect.

Defence solicitor, Mr. Richard Monteith, described it as a "bizarre" incident and certainly a disturbing one for Mr. Doyle to the extent that "his Pringles were munched in front of him".

District Judge Liam McNally said it was a "extremely serious offence" particularly for an area like Enniskillen that relies heavily on the tourist trade and campers being able to camp in safety and not have their vans broken into.

He told White it would have been a "very terrifying experience" for Mr. Doyle "to waken up and find you there, eating his Pringles".