A burglar has avoided jail after a judge gave him a chance to try and kick his £100-a-day crack cocaine habit.
Raul Ascensao, 40, of Barns Road, Cowley, carried out two break-ins on student houses on June 21 and 22.
He first struck in Hurst Street, East Oxford, taking £200 cash, a mobile phone and a gold chain.
The following day he broke into a house in Bullingdon Road, East Oxford, and took an Apple laptop, an Apple iPad and £20 cash.
He was arrested after trying to sell the goods to the owner of the Piri Piri restaurant in St George’s Place, Oxford.
Claire Fraser, defending, said her client had not received the treatment he needed for his drug addiction.
At Oxford Crown Court yesterday, Judge Gordon Risius gave him a 12 month suspended prison sentence, saying: “I have decided in the longer term it will be better both for you and for the community at large to attempt to break your cycle of drug addiction and offending.”
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