A “ONE-man crime spree” who targeted an Oxford school after trying heroin for the first time on his birthday has been given a chance to get clean.

Ian Dunlop committed 19 offences in a five-month period during which he became hooked on the Class A drug.

The spree began on February 23 when the 25-year-old stole a mobile phone from the counter of an Oxford shop. Having been arrested and released on bail, Dunlop committed the first of two burglaries at Oxford Spires Academy, formerly Oxford Community School, in Glanville Road, East Oxford, on Saturday, July 14.

Dunlop cycled to the school at about 11am and took a rucksack belonging to caretaker Jerome Spencer.

The following Saturday he again cycled to the school at 11am and went into a staff area, stealing a laptop computer.

A week later, on July 28, Dunlop burgled a house in Iffley Road, East Oxford, stealing about £300.

Dunlop was sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Monday having admitted theft, three burglaries and breaching a conditional discharge.He also asked for 13 other offences of stealing handbags from cars, committed between April and July, to be taken into consideration.

Trudi Yeatman, defending, said: “His life was spiralling out of control. At the centre of that spiral was heroin.”

She said Dunlop, who was already addicted to crack cocaine and has 18 previous convictions, first tried the drug on his birthday, May 31.

She added: “He said to me in the cells this morning ‘if I hadn’t been caught, and thank God I was, I would have been dead’.”

Recorder Richard Hamlin labelled Dunlop “a one-man crime spree” but said he was encouraged by his supportive parents, who said he can live with them in Swindon.

Dunlop was given a year’s supervision, 150 hours’ unpaid work and a six-month drug-rehabilitation programme.

The Recorder told him: “You have been given, if not a unique chance, a remarkably good chance. Do not throw it away.”