A bike thief went on a ‘kamikaze’ spree – taking two-wheelers in total worth more than £6,500.
Sean Denton admitted stealing eight bikes between August and October last year, filching one from a back garden and using the saddle posts of the rest as a makeshift tool to spring open the locks.
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Asked by Judge Nigel Daly on Monday ‘what’s this all about’, the 42-year-old candidly replied: “It’s about drugs, boss.
“I was homeless, boss. I was out pretty much every day.
“I’m quite ill, boss, yes? I was on a bit of a destructive [spiral].
“I felt like it was me against the world at the time and I was out every day committing crime.
“Things couldn’t have got no worse. I was living in doorways. If I got caught, it was a bit of a blessing.”
Speaking in his own defence, he described himself as having been on a ‘bit of a kamikaze thing’, but that matters improved when he was bailed with conditions to stay away from Oxford.
The ‘main thing’ for him was getting housing when he was released, Denton said. “Housing’s not easy in Oxford. It’s not easy anywhere’.
The career thief, with 31 convictions for 74 offences to his name including multiple bike thefts, apologised to his eight victims.
“I’m not a bad person. What I do is bad and I realise even though it’s push bikes [the owners] are victims,” he said.
Denton, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to eight counts of theft.
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Jailing him for six months, Judge Daly told the defendant: “It’s in your interest not to go around pinching people’s bikes, shoplifting or anything like that because, as I say, you’re well-known, there are cameras everywhere, you will get arrested and you will end up spending more and more time in prison.
“You’re 42-years-old it’s about time you get a grip of your life.”
Earlier, prosecutor Cathy Olliver told the crown court that all eight victims had their bikes stolen from central Oxford.
Among his victims were a couple visiting Oxford as tourists who had their £3,600 Cube electric bikes stolen from outside the Westgate Centre. A restaurant worker had his Carrera taken from the garden of his workplace in Little Clarendon Street. Two bikes were targeted in St Ebbes.
The total value of the stolen bikes was £6,780.
Denton said he was ‘pretty surprised’ by the high value. He was getting £20 a time, he suggested, and spending the money on drugs.
He dismissed the prosecution’s assertion that the thefts were planned and he had gone equipped with bolt cutters. He explained that he sprung the locks by ‘twisting’ them using the seat posts.
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