Addict thief is jailed for fourteen months

A prolific shoplifter who stole hundreds of pounds worth of goods from Perth stores - one of which has gone into administration and has permanently closed - has been jailed for 14 months.

Forty-year-old Neil McGhee also flouted a bail order banning him from a local supermarket, Perth Sheriff Court was told.

He then caused mayhem, “behaving in an objectionable and confrontational way” towards two female staff members.

The accused, previously of Viewfield Place, Perth, and now of Ward Road, Muthill, was said to be battling a drug habit.

Lawyer David Sinclair urged the sheriff to impose a communitybased sentence.

“He’s looking well, is currently drug free and submits two weekly samples, which are clean,”he said.

“He’s not been taking illicit substances and is on a methadone script.”

If his client was jailed, that would adversely affect the progress he had made and all the “good work being done.”

The court heard that McGhee admitted helping himself to goods worth more than £600 from Debenhams, Morrisons, Homesense, Marks and Spencer and the Food Warehouse, all in Perth, between September, 2019, and May, 2020.

Depute fiscal Tina Dickie said of that sum, just £165 was recovered.

He also refused to leave the Asda store in the city’s Dunkeld Road on September 21, 2019, shouted and swore and made violent threats to female staff.

Ms Dickie said he had been asked to leave the supermarket but he shouted:“You can’t ban me from a f***ing pharmacy.

“If you were a man, I would knock you out just now.”

He was again asked to leave and a female member of staff walked him to the exit but he turned round, ran up to her and “shouted in her face.”

Both employees were“left scared and upset.”

Imposing the jail term, Sheriff Lindsay Foulis noted the effect of shoplifting on shops and stores, which could lead to staff losing their jobs.

McGhee also had a“significant record,”stretching back to 1998.

He had been given unpaid work in the past but it hadn’t been completed and he had “spectacularly failed”to be of good behaviour.

“There comes a point, as far as I’m concerned, it’s appropriate to say sorry, the person in the dock has responsibility for his or her actions and they are the one who brings the ultimate disposal of custody upon themselves.”