A career thief was breaking into homes within months of his release from a four year sentence for burglary and attacking a police officer.

But Roy Evans, 45, has been given a chance to beat for good the drug addiction responsible for him clocking up 17 convictions for dwelling house burglary.

The Oxford man is the latest to be given a place on a trailblazing drug rehabilitation scheme that sees entrenched addicts given publicly-funded places at residential rehab institutions as an alternative to lengthy jail terms.

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As a ‘third strike’ burglar, Evans could have been looking at a mandatory sentence of at least three years’ imprisonment.

However, Recorder Samantha Presland instead imposed a three year community order. He was expected to be taken from HMP Bullingdon straight to a drug rehabilitation facility.

Upon his release from rehab he will have to wear a GPS tag monitoring tag for nine months and complete the thinking skills programme with probation.

Earlier, prosecutor Cathy Olliver told the court that Evans, of no fixed address, had pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to five non-dwelling burglaries and one break-in at a student house last year.

On February 18 last year he was disturbed by cleaners at the Oxford International College in St Clements, the court heard. Evans, who took a door entry card, told the cleaners he worked at the tutorial college – but they remained unconvinced and he was forced to flee.

The second break-in was at St Clare’s College, an international school in Summertown, on the same day. He pushed open a door and made off with a strong box containing ID passes, which were found discarded nearby.

A week later, on February 25, he burgled Summer Hills preparatory school in Summertown. A catering manager heard her office door bang and saw Evans come out the room.

She later discovered he had stolen money from a cash box as well as £10 and bank cards from her handbag. The stolen card was used to buy more than £40-worth of tobacco.

The following day, Evans broke into Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education in Wellington Square and took money from behind the bar.

On March 3, a student at home in Hurst Street heard a noise downstairs. Confident that all her housemates were out, she made a loud clattering in the hope of rattling the intruder. It worked and the woman managed to film the burglar cycling away from the property.

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Finally, on March 7 he kicked his way into council offices in Cave Street, St Clements. Evans was interrupted, the police were called and he was arrested.

Ms Olliver said Evans’ record for acquisitive crime went back to 1995. He was currently on licence, having been given four years imprisonment by a judge in Sussex in 2020 for burglary and causing grievous bodily harm to a police officer.

He had been released from that sentence on licence at the end of 2021. Probation ordered his recall to prison in February 2022, less than two months after his release, but Evans remained at large until his arrest in March.

On Wednesday, a representative from addiction charity Turning Point told Recorder Presland that the defendant had worked hard to get clean while on remand at HMP Bullingdon.

Despite a blip when he had taken an opioid substitute prescribed to another inmate, he had returned negative drug tests and was deemed suitable for a place at residential rehab.