A BURGLAR is behind bars after he crept into a sleeping couple’s bedroom and stole jewellery, a mobile phone and a bank card.

Mohamed Elgadi raided a retirement home in Newport on two occasions overnight, taking a TV from a communal area and then sneaking into his victims’ bedroom.

The 31-year-old appeared at Newport Crown Court on Monday to be sentenced for a spate of thefts and burglaries, all committed in the city between last December and this February.

The court heard the Sudanese-born defendant had become hooked on crack cocaine after dropping out of university, and had turned to stealing to fund his drug habit.

He has 17 previous convictions for 40 offences since November 2017, and was in breach of a suspended sentence when he carried out some of his most recent crimes.

South Wales Argus: Mohamed Elgadi

Overnight on December 23, Elgadi entered the Bryn Gaer retirement complex three times, taking items including two TVs and £20 cash from a bingo float.

On February 3, he stole an electric bike worth around £1,500 from outside its owner’s flat.

Four days later, a worker at Burger King in Commercial Street stopped Elgadi from taking a charity collection tin from a “staff only” area, Byron Broadstock, prosecuting, said.

On February 20, Elgadi ordered a coffee in the Tesco shop in Cambrian Road, and left without paying.

Later that day, he stole a locked bike worth £1,000 from outside the Dolman Theatre.

Elgadi’s crime spree ended on February 25, when he forced open a door at the Tredegar Court retirement home, first taking a TV and then returning to steal valuables from a bedroom.

He was arrested after being identified from CCTV in each incident, and went on to plead guilty to three counts of burglary, three counts of theft, and one count of attempted burglary.

Stuart John, defending, said Elgadi had an “ingrained” crack cocaine addiction and his crimes were “categorised by varying degrees of opportunism” in order to “fund his misuse of that drug”.

Elgadi, whose address was given to the court as Kestrel Way, Newport, had been brought up in Qatar but moved to the UK with his family in 2013, as a refugee, and started studying at London Metropolitan University.

Mr John said Elgadi suffered “racial abuse” as a student and quit because of “mental health problems” and “succumbed to temptation” with crack cocaine.

“It’s no coincidence that his offending starts shortly after that,” he added, describing Elgadi as an “intelligent” and “educated” man who wanted to “break that grip” of drugs on him.

The judge, Recorder Victoria Hillier, said Elgadi had engaged in a “serious, persistent and repeated pattern of offending”.

She jailed him for a total of three years.