A woman who stole a mobile phone during a street robbery was caught when she went to use a police station toilet.

Donna Marks, 28, snatched Leanne Twitchen's mobile while she was talking into it in the street to arrange a job interview on June 19 last year.

The caller, Emma Higgins, heard screams down the line as Marks shouted and hit her victim on the head.

Giles Curtis-Raleigh, prosecuting, told Oxford Crown Court the mother of three then walked away before returning to grab the phone and hit her victim around the head again. She walked off with her boyfriend Mark Haddock who was nearby. Ms Twitchen ran off to call police.

Marks and Haddock later went in to Banbury police station to use the toilets. The mobile phone was found on Haddock and both were arrested. He admitted handling stolen goods.

Marks, of Hereford Way, Banbury, who has previous convictions for dishonesty, fraud, theft and drug offences, initially denied robbery and claimed she had bought the phone for £10. She later admitted robbery.

Peter Ross, defending, said she had had a long-standing drug addiction but the associated drug problems which her baby had been born with, had shocked her into coming off heroin.

Judge Julian Hall agreed to defer sentence until July 2, to see if she could stay off drugs.

He said: "If you survive another six months without backsliding in to drugs, I won't send you to prison. But if you do, I almost certainly will."