A bungling burglar who returned to the scenes of earlier break-ins has been jailed for more than two years.

Andrew Hurtault, 40, stole £12,000-worth of electric bicycles from the Oxford shop he’d raided just two months earlier, Oxford Crown Court heard.

As a result of the burglary in April, the owner of the Electric Transport Shop installed top-of-the-range security measures. When he returned on June 5, Hurtault – the only one in his gang-of-three not wearing a face covering – was captured on the store’s crystal-clear CCTV.

Prosecutor Cathy Olliver said the defendant was also caught red-handed by builders when he returned to the renovation project in Crown Street, Cowley, where he’d earlier stolen up to £6,000-worth of tools, including a laser sight and drill.

CCTV from a pub across the road showed Hurtault filling up a shopping trolley with his stolen booty and walking away.

The builders arrived at the building site to find their tools missing. They went over the road to the pub to see if there was footage of the burglary - to be told by punters that the culprit had returned to the scene.

On Friday, July 30, Hurtault asked Judge Ian Pringle QC to take 13 other burglaries into consideration. The majority involved the theft of push bikes.

The career criminal was also in breach of a nine month suspended sentence imposed in February this year for non-dwelling burglaries.

Sentencing him for 27 months’ imprisonment, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “You are now 40 years of age and you fall to be sentenced by me today for breach of an order that I made back in February of this year where I passed a sentence of nine months suspended for two years and you will recall, I am sure, I told you if you got in any further trouble over the next two years you would [be sent to prison].”

The judge added: “You know what’s coming.”

Mitigating, Peter du Feu said his client committed his crimes in order to fund his drug habit. He had been placed on a prescription for a heroin substitute, but it was ‘not touching the sides’ at the time. He hoped to re-engage with support services upon his release.

The barrister said: “His lack of joined-up thinking, his lack of being a criminal mastermind is demonstrated, really, across the board. Having gone to Crown Street, which was because somebody told him the tools were there... he then returned there to be confronted by the builders.”

Hurtault, of Bartlemas Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to non-dwelling burglary and admitted being in breach of his suspended sentence.

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