Ex-public schoolgirl carried out 200 crimes in 17 years
You are just a burden on the state, sheriff tells offender
A PRIVATELY educated woman was yesterday branded ‘a burden on the state’ by a sheriff after committing more than 200 crimes since school.
Joanne Mayor, who attended Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, Perthshire, was back in court following a spate of drug-fuelled thefts and vandalism.
At Perth Sheriff Court, Sheriff William Wood told Mayor her life of crime was causing the taxpayer a financial headache.
He said: ‘You are a burden on the state because you keep stealing things. The courts would be keen to see you turn yourself around and avoid being sent back to prison.
‘We will see if a communitybased disposal can be imposed at this stage and if that doesn’t work you know where you will end up again.’
Mayor admitted vandalising a car in Banks Crescent, Crieff, last month.
Sentence was deferred to November when she will also be sentenced for stealing a handbag from a car, taking alcohol from the same shop twice in three days, and taking a remote controller from the shop Game.
She pleaded guilty to the offences earlier this week.
Mayor’s solicitor told Perth Sheriff Court her latest job had been serving food to other prisoners in Cornton Vale.
They added: ‘Most of her adult life she has struggled with an addiction to heroin and she has received numerous custodial sentences.’
Mayor, 35, who is living in a homeless unit in Perth, admitted carrying out four offences in a week from the end of April.
The 35-year-old went to the same £12,669-a-year school attended by Hollywood star Ewan McGregor.
She was previously jailed for 180 days for buying drugs on her way back from a meeting with her drug counsellor.
Mayor had been only been freed from Cornton Vale Prison in Stirling seven days beforehand, after finishing a 20-month term imposed at Perth Sheriff Court by Sheriff Lindsay Foulis when she failed his challenge to stay out of trouble for 12 days over Christmas 2010.
She lasted just over two days before she stole a charity cash box from a Crieff shop.
Jailing her at the time, Sheriff Foulis said: ‘Words fail me.
‘She had been given an opportunity by myself and was told in no uncertain terms what would happen if she failed. She is just throwing her life away.
‘Two days after being given her liberty and being told what would happen if she managed to stay out of trouble for 12 days, she is back.
‘We are talking here about less than 60 hours later. It is verging on the incomprehensible. Your record is horrendous.’
Mayor’s previous crimes include stripping off and leading transport police on a topless chase down the main Aberdeen to Glasgow railway line.
She stood partially naked in the middle of the tracks as officers pursued and eventually caught up with her.
From her first conviction at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on January 17, 2000, Mayor now has 122 convictions covering 213 offences.
The majority, more than 120, of those are for theft and shoplifting.
She also has convictions for fraud, breaching the peace, wasting police time, reset, driving offences, assault, drugs, culpable and reckless conduct, housebreaking, breaching probation and community service.
There are also convictions for attempting to defeat the ends of justice, and breaching a Drug Treatment and Testing Order.
She has had 68 jail terms imposed and they amount to more than 23 years in total sentences.
‘You know where you will end up’