Showing up two hours late to Niagara Detention Centre to serve an intermittent sentence, and forgetting he had a vial of crystal meth in his pocket, proved costly for a Welland man.

"I feel like I'm punishing you for being stupid, because it was a stupid thing to do," Judge Harvey Brownstone told the defendant in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines Tuesday.

Defence counsel Mark Evans said Joshua Babiy wasn't attempting to smuggle the drugs into the Thorold jail in April 2019, rather he simply forgot the vial was in his pocket.

The 34-year-old was arrested again the following month when he failed to attend the jail as required.

Babiy claimed he did show up at the detention centre on the second occasion but that "the gates were closed" so he left.

"Some judge took a chance on you and gave you weekends, and you screwed it up," Brownstone said.

Babiy was sentenced to time served and fined $1,045 after he pleaded guilty to several offences including two counts of being unlawfully at large and possession of crystal methamphetamines.

He also pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an incident in Wainfleet in the summer of 2019.

In July 2019, court was told, police spotted a vehicle travelling at a high rate of speed along Highway 58. Police followed the vehicle - clocked at 110 km/k in an 80-km/h zone - as it drove through a stop sign and into a ditch.

Court heard Babiy was a disqualified driver at the time, having been banned from driving following a previous conviction for flight from police.

"You and drugs do not get along," the judge said.

Evans said his client has struggled with drug addiction in the past but is now clean and sober.

"Mr. Babiy is a work in progress," the lawyer said.

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"He hasn't made it all the way to home plate, but he's starting to run the bases."

Babiy was also placed on probation for two years and banned from driving for 12 months.