A HOMELESS drug addict who walked into the Randolph Hotel and stole a member of staff’s purse from her locker was sentenced to seven months in prison.

Geoffrey Muirhead, 35, was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Wednesday by Judge Peter Ross. He admitted first burgling the hotel by walking in just after 6pm on January 3, with the intention of committing theft.

After he was escorted off the premises by a member of staff, he admitted he went back into the hotel through a staff-only entrance, which Judge Ross said was supposed to be key-code guarded, but was not secured.

Muirhead went into a staff locker room, the judge said, and prised open lockers.

Our top stories

Judge Ross said Muirhead took a woman’s handbag and stole her purse containing cards, £15 cash and her house keys. He said alcoholic Muirhead, whose last address was Lucy Faithful homeless shelter in Oxford, had a string of offences including theft, burglary and drugs “covering pretty well all of criminal law”.

His defence barrister Alex Bull said there were two sides to her client, “the drug addict and alcoholic who commits offences to fund his addiction” and “a man who wants to lead a normal life”.

The judge was resentencing Muirhead for the burglary and theft after he breached the community order he was given for them by Judge Ian Pringle in February.

Muirhead admitted to Judge Ross at the end of April he had breached that order by taking of his electronic ankle tag, failing to meet his officer as agreed and breaching his curfew seven times in March and April.

Judge Ross said: “His honour Judge Pringle did what I would have done – there must be an opportunity to see whether the root cause of offending can be dealt with, but our optimism was misplaced.”

Taking into account Muirhead’s guilty plea, he sentenced him to six months for the burglary and one month for each of the theft charges, to be served concurrently, making seven months in total.



Do you want alerts delivered straight to your phone via our WhatsApp service? Text NEWS or SPORT or NEWS AND SPORT, depending on which services you want, and your full name to 07767 417704. Save our number into your phone’s contacts as Oxford Mail WhatsApp and ensure you have WhatsApp installed.