Thief spared jail as long as she goes home to Romania
‘Professional shoplifters’
A ROMANIAN teenager who came to Britain for a nationwide ‘professional shoplifting spree’ has been released from prison – on the condition she flies home.
Madalina Horvath, 19, had been jailed for 14 months earlier this month after admitting five charges of theft, mainly targeting high value electronic items at branches of John Lewis.
But the teenager returned to court this week after her family volunteered to pay for a one-way ticket back to her homeland.
Judge Bernard Lever agreed to shorten her sentence to ten months, meaning he could release her immediately due to time spent on remand. He ruled British taxpayers should be spared the £8,000 bill to keep Horvath in prison for two more months before she could be released on licence anyway half way through the original sentence.
The court heard Horvath, who entered Britain in 2015, stole £15,000 worth of goods between July 2015 and November last year.
At one point during her spree she was arrested in Kent but she disappeared after she was given bail and told to attend court. She also targeted other locations including Watford, Nottingham and Cambridge.
She was rearrested in November following a stealing expedition at the Trafford Centre shopping mall in Manchester, where she took five BOSE headphones and three memory cards worth £1,184.89 from a John Lewis store. Reviewing the sentence at the city’s Minshull Street Crown Court, Judge Lever said: ‘The fact is you went on a professional shoplifting spree and you were at the epicentre at the planning of it.
‘I would not shorten a sentence in normal circumstances but it costs the taxpayer of this country between £3,000 to £4,000 a month to keep you in custody. My decision to vary your sentence will save the taxpayer between £6,000 and £8,000 and also has the highly desirable effect, after a significant period in custody, of getting you out of this country.
‘What I’m going to do for you is only possible because you are young, have no previous convictions, and have expressed a view that you want immediately to go home to Romania.’ He added: ‘The sooner that she leaves this country the better.’
Horvath, of Coventry, West Midlands, was due to return to Romania yesterday. She sobbed in the dock as the judge castigated what he called the ‘completely unacceptable’ way visitors to the UK come to ‘interfere with the lawful commerce of shops’.
He added: ‘Feel free to tell your friends and everybody else what happens to people who come over from other countries to be professional shoplifters – it is not pleasant.’ Other items she stole included 16 iPod Touches worth £2,864 from John Lewis in Nottingham and Apple products worth £6,839 in Cambridge.