A HOMELESS man who broke into a family home was caught because he dropped chocolate from the children’s Easter eggs he had eaten.

Kevin Hardman broke into the house in South Hinksey while the family were away at the end of June, Oxford Crown Court heard on Tuesday.

Prosecutor Naomi Perry said he stole 12 bottles of wine, 12 of Champagne, six bottles of spirits, power tools, a MacBook computer and a valuable speaker system.

The total value of his haul was more than £8,000, she said, and he left the house “ransacked”.

Ms Perry told Judge Kristina Montgomery QC 41-year-old Hardman, of no fixed abode, discovered the children’s Easter eggs in a drawer then scoffed them, scattering chocolate pieces on the floor.

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Forensic police officers used the pieces to get a DNA sample that matched Hardman, already on police files from some of his 75 previous offences.

Having got Hardman’s name, Ms Perry said DC Shane Hedges then went to pawn shops around Oxford and eventually, at Cash Generator in Cowley, found the Sonos speaker system that was stolen from the house, and a receipt with Hardman’s name on it.

The homeowner identified it and Hardman was arrested.

Hardman was also sentenced for a string of thefts at Oxfordshire supermarkets, where he used the self-scan till but did not pay for items.

Between May 4 and June 30 he targeted Tesco stores at Oxford Retail Park, Cowley Road, Headington, and Banbury, and Sainsbury’s in St Clement’s and Cowley Road.

Each time, Ms Perry said he used the same technique, taking his items to the self-scan till, putting in a cheque card, then making off without paying.

And she said: “This was not simply buying a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, this was a large amount of groceries – presumably for selling on.”

The total haul was worth something like £1,100, she said.

Hardman’s defence barrister James Burke said that his client’s offences over the years were fuelled by his addiction to heroin and crack cocaine.

He was first before the criminal courts at the age of 12 for theft.

Mr Burke said he managed to stay drug free for six years from 2005, at which point he started a family and a business, but, following a conviction for burglary in 2011, his marriage broke down making life harder.

Hardman admitted the latest charge of burglary and six thefts.

Judge Montgomery sentenced him to a total of two years and eight months in prison and ordered him to pay a £180 criminal courts charge and £120 victims’ surcharge.