A CHEF who carried out a spate of offences over a five-month period has been jailed for 16 months.

Matthew Bagnall-Nevers, of Nye Bevan Close, Oxford, admitted two counts of burglary and two counts of theft between June 7, 2015, and November 20, 2015.

Prosecutor Cathy Olliver told Oxford Crown Court the 26-year-old father-of-two burgled a ground floor room in Wadham College, stealing from a 19-year-old student who lived there.

She said the student left the room at about midday and came back half an hour later to find a ring and necklace missing from her jewellery box, as well as a camera and chocolate biscuits.

Ms Olliver said police later saw CCTV that showed Bagnall-Nevers walking around the college, but he gave a no comment interview when arrested.

She said the defendant also stole a red and white bicycle on June 7, and later paraded it outside Cowley Road’s Bar Aroma, where he was overheard boasting about the theft.

The prosecutor said Bagnall-Nevers stole a blue laptop on display at a Cowley Road store on October 14, and was identified by police after shop owners raised the alarm.

Ms Olliver said the defendant also burgled Cowley Road café George & Delila in November.

Defence barrister Lucy Ffrench said Bagnall-Nevers hoped to get a place at Reading-based residential rehabilitation centre Yeldall Manor upon release from prison to deal with his drug addiction.

She added: “He would say it’s solely his drug addiction that has led him to commit these offences.”

Judge Patrick Eccles added: “It really is the multiplicity of the offending that is particularly serious. All of this seems to have arisen from different stages in your life when you seemed to have taken drugs. I have to sentence you as someone who has caused a lot of unhappiness to various members of the public.”

Bagnall-Nevers will also have to pay a victim surcharge.