A man who stole a girl’s present from under the Christmas tree has been jailed for five years after admitting a string of offences.

Kevin Feather, 35, unwrapped the iPad tablet computer and replaced it with a shopping catalogue before crudely rewrapping the gift with black insulation tape, Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday. The computer had been a present from the girl’s father and left with her mother, Feather’s former partner, who had allowed him to stay at her house in Wyke when he had nowhere else to go.

He also stole another tablet computer and charger and a digital camera from the house.

The Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, said it was a “mean and nasty” offence and the girl would have been “upset and wondrous” if she had opened the present on Christmas Day. Feather, formerly of Milner Ing, Delph Hill, Bradford, pleaded guilty to four charges of supplying class A drugs, when he was caught street dealing by the police’s Operation Stalebank, and was sentenced to three years imprisonment for those offences.

He was given a further eight months for the theft from his former partner’s house, and a consecutive 16 months for an attempted burglary at a house in Markfield Avenue, Low Moor, and going equipped for burglary, which he also admitted.

Feather’s solicitor advocate, Philip Ainge, said his client was ashamed by what he had done.

He would use his time in custody to rid himself of his drug addiction and try to rebuild a relationship with his former partner.