A drug addict took part in a series of burglaries because an accomplice was too fat to squeeze through windows, a court heard.

Daniel Cordas-Cousins, 27, of Banbury Road, Bloxham, near Banbury, pleaded guilty to burgling a house in south Warwickshire.

Angela Palmer, prosecuting, told Warwick Crown Court that in July last year a woman returned to Warmington to find her house burgled and most of her jewellery stolen.

Cordas-Cousins's fingerprints were found inside. He was arrested in October and took police to a railway embankment where the jewellery, worth about £600, was found.

Vivian Walters, defending, said: "The burglaries were instigated by another man who could not commit the initial parts of the burglaries himself, climbing into houses, because of his considerable size. "As payment for the defendant doing that, he gave him drugs and as a result of that, Cousins became dependent and therefore continued to commit offences."

Cordas-Cousins, the court heard, received £20 worth of heroin for his part in the raid.

He is currently serving a nine-month sentence imposed at Oxford Crown Court for offences committed after the Warmington raid.

Judge Thomas Dillon jailed Cordas-Cousins for three months, to be served consecutively to his existing sentence.

Story date: Tuesday 22 February

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