A HAMPSHIRE man has been convicted of stealing more than £1,000 from a friend in a supported housing unit.

Daniel Fox, 28, admitted breaking into the room in Winchester and stealing cash.

Prosecutor Tom Horder described how Fox owed £40 to a friend and neighbour at the facility in Colebrook Street.

The victim trusted him to leave it in a safe in her room, where she had kept £1,300 in savings for a new car.

But Fox, now of Durley Street, Southampton, forced his way into the room when she wasn’t there and took the cash.

When confronted he ran off with a rucksack, Winchester Crown Court heard. He was arrested days later near Winchester railway station.

Lance Whiteford, mitigating, said Fox had repaired his relationship with Ms Jackson and repaid £400, adding that he was “subject to the effects” of his paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the incident.

Fox is on conditional bail before sentencing for burglary at Winchester Crown Court on October 16.