AN ALCOHOLIC who claimed he was abducted by travellers and forced to clamber through a hole during a £24,000 heist has been jailed. 

Thief Andrew Stuart was part of a group of criminals who grabbed pick axes and sledge hammers to crack their way through to an Argos store.

He declared he was beaten around the legs with a wooden plank and shoved into a car before being escorted to the Cowley shop by travellers hassling him for cash.

But Judge Maria Lamb rejected his claims he was under duress, telling the 34-year-old she was convinced he was not ‘acting under instruction’ by others in the joint enterprise, locking him up for 20 months.

Stuart confessed he was the crook captured on CCTV pinching jewellery, watches, gift boxes, electrical items, Brita water filter cartridges, a SIM card and toys from the Horspath Driftway store at about 11.30pm on October 13 last year.

But the landscape gardener, of Dene Road, Oxford, claimed he was forced into the raid by the group of travellers he met six months earlier when he borrowed £50.

Taking the stand during Monday’s Oxford Crown Court hearing, he said he discovered travellers had upped his debt to £700 when he tried to repay his loan.

They warned him they would harm him if he failed to pay, turning up at his ex-partner’s home, where she lived with their three children, hurling threats, the defendant claimed.

Stuart said he had been drinking at Headington’s Royal Standard pub when a gang of three travellers attacked him outside and drove him to Argos, screaming demands for goods through the hole they had already crafted.

Judge Lamb said CCTV - played in court but not released by Thames Valley Police despite requests made by the Oxford Mail - showed Stuart displayed ‘no hint or trace of any form of panic or apprehension’ during the heist.

The ‘devoted’ family man, who had 40 previous convictions and must pay a victim surcharge, was spotted on the footage scrambling up and down ladders as he took his time picking items to pinch.

The court heard Stuart turned to alcohol after his partner-of-15 years left him for another man last March. His addiction left him fighting for his life in intensive care on one occasion, with medics placing him in an induced coma after his heart and lungs stopped.

Stuart, who admitted burglary, claimed he did not know where the Argos goods were.