A robber farted in a police officer’s face as they arrested him for a raid at Tesco.

Matthew Hapgood, 41, had been brought to heel after making repeated trips into the supermarket in search of beer and cider before pocketing vapes and vape fluid at an Esso garage.

Jailing him for 34 months at Oxford Crown Court on Friday morning, Judge Ian Pringle QC said: “You have a lengthy history, no less than 31 previous convictions for 83 offences, all really to do with a drug or alcohol addiction which has been with you for most of your adult life. Acquisitive crime is your stamp.”

Earlier, prosecutor Edward Culver said Hapgood had made repeated trips in-and-out of the Tesco in Cholsey on March 21, making off with almost £33-worth of beer and cider.

Two members of staff at the shop saw him with a large knife, which they described as ’18 inches long’. When they went to confront him, he told them to ‘f*** off’.

Later that day, he went to the Esso garage on Station Road, Wallingford, and ‘piled his pockets full of vape products as well as vape fuel’.

Mr Culver said that when Hapgood was arrested he ‘broke wind in the officer’s face during the course of that arrest’. No further information was given about why the constable’s face was within range of the thief.

He spat in the police van taking him to the police station, the prosecutor said. The knife was never recovered.

Appearing before Oxford Crown Court on Friday morning, Hapgood, of Ruttle Close, Wallingford, pleaded guilty to robbery, shoplifting, possession of a bladed article and criminal damage. He appeared in court via video link from HMP Bullingdon, where he has been on remand since March.

Ronan McCann, mitigating, said his client’s problems were linked to a ‘long term addiction in relation to substances’. He asked for his client to be sentenced immediately without a pre-sentence report being compiled by the probation service.

Judge Pringle, the honorary Recorder of Oxford, said he took the robbery offence at Tesco to be a ‘serious matter’.

Had Hapgood fought the matter to trial, he would have imposed a sentence of 40 months. However, his relatively early guilty pleas – entered before any trial – meant he was entitled to a reduction of a quarter, bringing the sentence down to 30 months.

The judge imposed a further four months ‘consecutive’, or on top, of the robbery sentence for possession of the bladed article.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

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