A MAN who robbed a teenager celebrating his 18th birthday has been jailed.

Matthew Chalmers, who knew his victim, punched Jamie Smith in the face and stole about £120 and his Samsung mobile phone.

Jonathan Stone, prosecuting, told Oxford Crown Court yesterday the 25-year-old defendant had consumed alcohol and “a large quantity of ecstasy” before the attack close to the Tesco superstore in Marcham Road, Abingdon, on July 31.

The court heard Chalmers, who earlier admitted robbery and has previous convictions for robbery and six assaults, handed himself over to police a month later and has since returned the money and the phone.

Mark Dixon, defending, said: “He accepts it was an unpleasant matter – a regrettable one, certainly.”

“He had taken a lot of E (ecstasy), E which he thinks was mixed with other items.”

Judge Gordon Risius jailed Chalmers for a year and said: “If you carry on behaving as you have done in the past you face a very bleak future.”