A burglar is staring down the barrel of a three year jail term after he admitted breaking into one of Oxford’s most exclusive schools.
Appearing before Oxford Crown Court on Thursday morning, Raymond Starkings, 34, admitted burgling Avenue House, part of £14,433-a term St Edward School, between July 13 and 16 last year.
He has also been charged with breaking into a property in Field House Drive, Summertown, on July 19, 2021.
Remanding him in custody and ordering a pre-sentence report, Judge Maria Lamb said: “I want it clearly to be understood he’s a third-striker and so unless there are exceptional reasons he can expect a minimum sentence of three years – and that’s a minimum.”
He will be sentenced on September 29.
By coincidence, that will be almost a year to a day after he received two years’ imprisonment in his absence from another Oxford judge.
On that occasion, Starkings had refused to leave his cell and learn his fate.
He was dealt with for stealing from a parish church, rifling through staff members’ bags at a garden centre and breaking into a cricket pavilion during a match.
Alexandra Bull, prosecuting the case, said Starkings walked into a staff room at Charlbury garden centre on December 15, 2020, and left with a staff member’s bank card, later using it in the village Londis corner shop.
A week later he was caught on camera breaking into the Churchill Court Hotel, Long Hanborough, and walking away with £70 from the bar till.
On Christmas Day he walked into the Black Horse pub, Standlake, and pilfered £750 in banknotes from the tip jar.
A judge deferred sentence in April 2021. Notwithstanding receiving that chance, he was caught on CCTV going into All Saint’s Church, Marcham, in June and walking off with an iPad.
On July 24, he was caught red-handed by more than half a dozen cricketers after snuck into Stanton Harcourt Cricket Club’s pavilion and stole £200 from players’ wallets.
“The defendant denied the theft and said the money he had in his hand was his. He then tried to run,” Ms Bull said. The players recovered £145.
A woman who had been with Starkings at the club tried to drive off in a Citroen Picasso. When she found the steward had shut the gates to the cricket field, she rammed the car into the gates until they gave way.
News of the testing escapade made its way to the pages of tabloid newspaper The Sun.
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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
Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward
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