A YOUNG AUSTRALIAN man who attempted to steal a bottle of vodka from a Phuket nightspot is being deported today, Phuketwan has learned. A Phuket court imposed a fine of 2500 baht and suspended a jail term.

The cost to the young man of his momentary lapse of judgement? Several thousand Australian dollars. And perhaps a whole lot more.

The case is one of a series in 2011 that has raised again the issue of tourist behavior and the additional penalties that come almost as a matter of course for tourists who are accused of ''holiday crimes'' on Phuket.

Still waiting to have their cases heard are two other Australians, both accused of attempted theft or theft. One man, who has admitted that he stole a pair of Rayban sunglasses at Phuket airport as he was about to catch a flight on January 5, has been obliged to remain on Phuket awaiting a court hearing ever since.

Another man, accused of trying to steal 12 bottles of alcohol from the Orchid Garden Hotel in Patong on January 8, is also still awaiting a court date.

The Thai system of justice embraces the principle of one law for all, and rightly so. However, when it comes to the penalty fitting the crime, people who do not reside in Thailand do appear to frequently suffer a great deal more.

While fair and reasonable penalties are imposed by Thai courts, ''holiday crimes'' - usually thefts or attempted thefts that are often committed on the spur of the moment and regretted almost immediately - often cost tourists and their families much, much more than a small fine.

People can and have lost their jobs, lost their housing, and had to spend hundreds of thousands of baht on lawyers, cancelled flights, and extra accommodation.

The penalty in court can amount to as little as a fine of 500 baht or 1000 baht. But the additional expenditure incurred can often be a thousand times that, or more.

Regrettably, civil servants within Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade actively restrict Australia's honorary consul on Phuket from talking to the media about this issue, except during the honorary consuls' meetings every three months.

While Australians are frequently ''holiday crime'' culprits because they tend to mix alcohol and fun abroad in much the same way they do at home, the issue of slow and expensive holiday justice applies equally to visitors from all countries.

The most notorious Phuket case involved ''beermat bandit'' and mother of three Annice Smoel, who in 2009 protested her innocence of theft but pleaded guilty so she could fly home quickly to her daughters.

Her plight brought wide media coverage in Australia and internationally to such an extent that the then Prime Minister of Australia became involved. As a result, the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand telephoned the then Governor of Phuket . . . and the case came to a conclusion within 24 hours.

None of the young men involved in the 2011 series of cases on Phuket has daughters waiting at home, so the Australian radio commentators know as ''shock jocks'' have yet to receive an irate telephone call alerting them to the plights of these young tourists.

One accused and his family, though, has reportedly spent a million baht on the extra expense involved on a case.

That's the equivalent of $33,000 dollars, and all for a moment's indiscretion on the happy holiday island of Phuket.

Extended accommodation on Phuket, relatives flying from Australia, legal fees . . . the list and the expense goes on and on.

When the case does eventually reach court, the fine is likely to be infinitesimal by comparison.

Nobody questions the fairness of the Thai system of one law for all.

Yet the important issue raised by these three cases is whether justice imposes an unfair and excessively heavy penalty on tourists for forgetting for a moment that they are visitors in another country.

Efforts to establish a special Tourist Court have failed because there is one law for all. But in some cases, fast-track justice would help to ensure that the overall penalties more accurately fit the crimes.