A 65-year-old woman was shoved to the ground by the thief who then made off with her £2,200 electric bicycle.

Antonio Marraffa, 26, had been granted bail late the previous year by the same crown court judge who sent him down for more than two-and-a-half years on Tuesday.

Oxford Crown Court heard that the Oxford man’s victim had cycled to the Marks and Spencer in Cowley on May 31 last year and locked up the expensive e-bike.

She came out with her shopping at around 2.30pm and saw Marraffa ‘paying her close attention’ although she didn’t think much of it at the time, prosecutor Iestyn Morgan said.

On the CCTV, he could be seen running after her. He grabbed the handlebars and wrestled the bike from her.

The woman suffered a nasty graze in the robbery. The injury was fixed with steri-strips at the hospital.

Marraffa was on bail at the time for a series of thefts and attempted thefts of bicycles and an e-scooter, committed the previous year.

He was caught on CCTV stealing a bike from a back garden in Oxford on May 30, 2020.

On July 16, 2020, Marraffa approached an old schoolmate outside the Co-op in Littlemore Road, Oxford, and asked to have a go on the man’s electric scooter. Having got behind the controls of the two-wheeler, the defendant made off with the piece of equipment and never came back.

The following month, on August 21, he was interrupted by security as he tried to break open a bike lock near the Westgate Centre.

A police officer tried to stop him but Marraffa, who was cycling at the time, barrelled into the man – knocking him to the ground. The officer’s watch – a 19 day old present from his partner – was damaged in the assault.

Mr Morgan told the court that the defendant had 22 convictions for 36 offences, including 16 for theft or similar crimes of dishonesty.

Mitigating, Ronan McCann said his client had fallen back into drug addiction after the breakdown of his relationship in 2019. The dad-of-one had previously been able to abstain from taking drugs and was still a young man, his barrister said.

Jailing him for 35 months, Judge Maria Lamb described Marraffa’s record of previous convictions as ‘dismal’ and urged him to take part in courses while inside that would ensure he remained drug-free on his release.

Marraffa, formerly of Iffley Road, Oxford, had earlier pleaded guilty to robbery. He had already admitted theft, attempted theft and assaulting an emergency worker, but was formally cleared of an unrelated assault when the victim did not attend for the trial on Tuesday.

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