A MAN banned from an area of Oxford for shouting obscenities at schoolgirls flouted the order to buy petrol to drink and sniff, police said.

Robbie Stephens, 23, was banned from an area of the city, including Blackbird Leys, for five years in December after a series of verbal and physical assaults on women, girls and his own relatives on the estate on September 19 last year.

Thames Valley Police said he had a history of drinking and sniffing petrol and could have been high on the day of the offences.

Stephens, of no fixed address, was given an antisocial behaviour by Oxford magistrates on December 15 banning him from Blackbird Leys, Greater Leys and Rose Hill for five years.

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He breached the Asbo on February 2 when he went to Sainsbury’s at Heyford Hill to buy petrol. When officers arrived to arrest him he had just bought a gallon of petrol and was found to be “extremely intoxicated”.

Antisocial behaviour officer Mike Ellis said: “Stephens is known to drink and sniff petrol. During his spree of offences it was noted by some witnesses that he smelt strongly of petrol at the time, leading to the belief he was intoxicated on petrol at the time of committing these offences.

“His presence within the exclusion area, coupled with his intoxication and purchase of petrol, represents a significantly high risk of serious offences being committed, potentially against his father or grandparents, but also, as indicated by his previous sexually-based offences, against any lone females within the area.”

Stephens had previously breached the Asbo on December 19 by going to his grandparents’ home in Blackbird Leys.

He had been handed the order following a string of offences on September 19 that police said began at 5.30am when he shouted sexually explicit and suggestive words at a woman he did not know in Knights Road.

At 6.20am, he went up to two women unloading a delivery at shops in Blackbird Leys Road and shouted more sexually graphic terms at them.

At 7am, he met his grandfather walking his dog in Overmead Green and assaulted him.

At 8.20am, he approached two girls on their way to school and made sexually explicit suggestions to them.

Finally, at 10.10am he went to his father’s house in Knights Road, ignoring a restraining order imposed after an assault.

Police were called and Stephens assaulted the officer who tried to arrest him.

He was jailed for 24 weeks in December for breaching the ASBO. He was released on February 2 and found at Sainsbury’s with the gallon of petrol eight hours later.

Stephens pleaded guilty to the latest breach at Oxford Crown Court on Friday and will be sentenced on April 14.

He was remanded in custody.