A DRUNKEN man whose friends covered him in red paint while he was intoxicated went on to steal a mobile phone in broad daylight from a customer at a McDonald’s restaurant in Swindon.

Steven Paul O’Brien, 52, of Holinshead Place, Grange Park, pleaded guilty to a charge of theft when he appeared before magistrates in Swindon on Wednesday.

Pauline Lambert, prosecuting, told the court that at 3pm on January 7 this year a McDonald’s customer noticed that her iPhone was missing from her handbag and reported the theft to the manager.

O’Brien was identified from CCTV coverage which showed him taking the phone from the handbag and putting it into a carrier bag he had brought with him.

When apprehended he admitted the theft but said he had lost the phone. He said he would have been intoxicated at the time he committed the offence.

Miss Lambert told the magistrates that O’Brien’s long list of previous offences included stealing from the tip jar at Caffe Nero in Bridge Street, Swindon, in September last year for which he had been sentenced earlier this month to a two-week curfew.

Tony Nowogrodzki, defending, said O’Brien suffered from a bad back and was often in excruciating pain. He also suffered from depression and severe COPD, a lung disease.

The last few years had been difficult for O’Brien’s large family in Swindon, following the death of their mother in Liden and more recently the deaths of a brother and a sister-in-law.

When another brother was diagnosed with terminal cancer O’Brien had gone off the rails and had been drinking far too much, Mr Nowogrodzki told the bench.

He said that, before he had gone into McDonald’s, O’Brien had been drinking with friends and was intoxicated.

He had been spotted covered in red paint by town centre police officers, who took pictures of him.

O'Brien told the police his friends had covered him in the paint while he was sleeping.

He then went into McDonald’s for a coffee to try to sober up when he spotted the telephone and took it. He had run out of gas and electricity and it was his intention to sell the phone to try to make ends meet, Mr Nowogrodzki said.

“This was a very unsophisticated theft on the spur of the moment,” he added.

“With red paint all over him he stood out like a sore thumb.”

O’Brien was sentenced to a three-month community order to include a five-week curfew between the hours of 7pm and 7am. He was also ordered to pay £400 compensation for the mobile phone.