THE jury has retired in the trial of a man accused of trying to steal thousands of pounds worth of steel.
Andrew Fitzsimons, of St James Cottages, Grove, near Wantage, denies one count of burglary at Field Barn Farm, near Abingdon, on May 14 last year.
Giving evidence this week, he told a jury at Oxford Crown Court that he had only been at the site because he owned property there and had seen lights as he drove home. The 43-year-old said he ran away when men with metal poles approached him and hid in a bush until a police dog attacked him.
He is accused of trying to steal between £10,000 and £15,000 of stainless steel from Caribbean Cookers’ unit.
Simon Ward, prosecuting, told the jury yesterday that Fitzsimons’s description of jumping out of his car to escape the men with metal bars did not make sense.
He said: “You would lock the door, start the engine and reverse out the way that you came in.
“That is what anyone would have done.”
The trial continues.
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