A DINER who is banned from every restaurant in England and Wales by an Asbo will be eating his Christmas dinner in prison after Oxford magistrates jailed him for 12 weeks.

Christopher Travis, of no fixed address, is already well known to restaurateurs in Oxford for failing to pay the bill after tucking into food and drinks.

The 52-year-old alcoholic was living in a tent in Kidlington until he was last jailed on October 31 for breaching his Asbo by dining without paying.

He was released from prison on Friday, but just three days later he was arrested after duping staff at The Crown in Cornmarket Street and the Old Tom in St Aldate’s.

He boasted to a staff member about his notoriety and even tipped her £2 despite not paying for his meal.

At Oxford Magistrates’ Court yesterday, Travis admitted two charges of breaching his Asbo by visiting the two pubs, fraud and making off without payment.

He had been given a three-year Asbo at South Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court in June 2010, after he dined at a Derby restaurant and ran off without paying the bill.

Warwick Clarke, defending, said: “His previous offences are myriad. They just go back and back and back. He is an alcoholic, chronically so.”

Mr Clarke added: “He is going through a compulsive act. The repetition of the act and then the declaration that he can’t pay at the end.”

Magistrates heard that when he was unable to pay his £24.90 bill at the Old Tom he instead handed over a cutting from the Oxford Mail and boasted that he was the diner that didn’t pay.

Within two hours he was at The Crown, where he again ordered food and wine worth £27.50, and the police were called.

Mr Clarke said: “He thinks what he has done is buy himself a ticket to go back to prison.”

Sentencing Travis, magistrate Bernard Smith said: “As an intelligent man you will understand the position that you have put us in.”