Career criminal stays off drugs and out of trouble for two weeks

PROGRESS: Court told break from offending is a ‘success’ as thief complies with community payback order

A career criminal described as a “burden on the state” who was chauffeur-driven from prison by social workers to avoid mixing with other drug addicts has returned to the dock.

Joanne Mayor, 35, was caught shoplifting less than a month after social workers and a court made the special arrangements to give her a lift home from Greenock jail.

Her solicitor told the court the latest chapter in Mayor’s efforts to avoid crime had been a success because she had managed to stay out of trouble for “a couple of weeks.”

Sarah Meehan said: “This is the most positively she has done in recent times, as it normally only takes her a day or two to fall off the ladder.

“But she has complied with the community payback order for a couple of weeks and has given clean drug samples. She struggles with drug addiction and has done for 20 years.

“There is a very lengthy, and what can only be described as appalling, record before the court.”

Miss Meehan said Mayor, who was privately educated at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, had been in court on Tuesday for a positive review of her community payback.

However, Mayor from Crieff struggled to stand during that hearing and was eventually thrown out of the courtroom for being disruptive.

Miss Meehan said she left the court and bumped into an old friend who gave her valium, which led to her stealing £6.50 worth of goods from Primark on Wednesday.

Sheriff James MacDonald said he was “just persuaded” to grant Mayor bail again – despite her record of 121 previous convictions since 2000. Sentence was deferred until January.

On November 1, a sheriff said a social work car should be arranged to pick up Mayor from prison as she could not be trusted to get home without stopping to buy drugs.

Mayor has previously been jailed for 180 days for buying drugs on her way back from a meeting with her drug counsellor.

She also once failed a sheriff’s festive challenge to stay out of trouble for the 12 days of Christmas – lasting just two days before stealing charity cash from the blind.

Mayor also led transport police on a topless chase down the main Aberdeen to Glasgow railway line.

There is a very lengthy, and what can only be described as appalling, record before the court

Sentence was deferred until January on Joanne Mayor, who struggles with drug addiction.