A THIEF who tried to sell headphones in a city centre store shortly after he had stolen them from another city centre store has been jailed.

A few days earlier, on January 11, Simon James Foster, 40, had thrown a bottle at a University of York security guard who had found him in a sleeping bag in the doorway of Kings Manor, said Kathryn Walters, prosecuting.

The bottle smashed on the ground close to the guard.

Foster’s solicitor Liam Hassan said he was penniless and homeless when he committed the offences earlier this month but now had accommodation.

Foster was on post-sentence supervision after serving a jail term imposed last July for carrying a knife.

York magistrates sent him back to jail for eight weeks and ordered him to pay a £128 statutory surcharge.

Foster, of Holgate Road, York, pleaded guilty to theft, fraud and a public order offence.

Mrs Walters said on January 19, staff at Boots in Coney Street spotted Foster stealing two headphones worth together £99.97. They sent out a general shops alert.

Foster went to CEX on Church Street and sold them for £12, but was then arrested.

York magistrates heard a probation report saying Foster was addicted to alcohol.