A man told a jury a burglar lost his Panama hat as he fled from an open window of his flat.

Ben Hedgedus woke to find a burglar wearing a white hat with a black band in his Walton Street flat before chasing him out.

The man jumped out of the window but lost his Panama hat as he ran down the road, Mr Hedgedus told a jury at Oxford Crown Court today.

Mr Hedgedus said: “He seemed to be regaining his balance just as I saw him speeding off, and his hat fell off from the resistance of the wind.”

Gabriel Chamberlain, 35, of Oxford Road, Kidlington, denies burgling the flat in Jericho and stealing a handbag on August 18.

Mr Hedgedus, whose 11-week-old daughter was also in the house at the time, handed the hat to the police.

Tim Boswell, prosecuting, said a police officer had seen Chamberlain about 40 minutes before the burglary, wearing a white Panama hat.

He added a DNA sample matched Chamberlain’s profile.

Chamberlain denies burglary and said the hat belonged to a man he knew only as Carl, who he had temporarily swapped hats with, earlier that evening.

The case continues.