A burglar who raided homes, bars and a restaurant on Cowley Road has been jailed for almost five years.

John Bousfield, 24, asked for another burglary and the theft of a wheelie bin to be taken into consideration by the judge who sentenced him at Oxford Crown Court this week.

The thief’s lawyer asked Judge Michael Gledhill QC to allow drug workers to assess Bousfield to check if he was suitable for a rehabilitation programme. The Oxford man had had a difficult childhood and was addicted to crack cocaine at 16 and heroin by 18. Since being remanded, he’d got a job in prison helping to do the recycling.

But Judge Gledhill refused the application, telling the defendant that he’d been given a number of opportunities to get clean and stay out of trouble.

“Nothing has worked and every attempt to help you has, if I can use the colloquialism, been thrown straight back in the face of the court,” he said, jailing Bousfield for 58 months.

“24 years old and you have an appalling record. On any view it is absolutely dreadful.”

In December last year, he was caught with a rucksack-full of items that had just been stolen from a house in Cowley Road, with a folding bicycle also taken in the break-in found nearby. Among the taken were a £180 Bose speaker, a PlayStation 4 and a passport. He admitted handling stolen goods.

In the same month, he attempted to break into another Oxford property and tried to steal a bicycle.

On April 14, he was caught red-handed carrying a pressure washer that had been stolen less than an hour earlier from the garage of a house in Cowley Road. One of the occupants of the house was in at the time.

Later that month, on April 19, he and a woman smashed their way into the James Street Tavern and Cowley Retreat bars, making off with bottles of alcohol.

He admitted breaching a 10 month suspended sentence imposed last year for house burglary, pleaded guilty to stealing alcohol from Tesco and asked for a break-in at the Nef Istanbul restaurant, Cowley Road, and the theft of a wheelie bin to be taken into consideration when he was sentenced.

Mitigating, Emma Hornby asked for Bousfield to be assessed for a prison-based drug rehabilitation programme. Her client had had a difficult upbringing, had found himself homeless in his teens and had then struggled with drug addiction. Since being remanded in custody, he had done a number of courses and had a prison job.

Bousfield, of Banbury Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty to burglary, attempted burglary, attempted theft, and handling stolen goods. He had twice been sentenced for house burglary in the past, meaning he was subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.

John Bousfield, who has been jailed for burglary Picture: TVP

John Bousfield, who has been jailed for burglary Picture: TVP

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