BURGLAR JAILED FOR BREACHING BAN ON RETURN TO THE CITY

31-year-old blows ‘second chance’

A WOMAN ordered to stay out of Stoke-on-trent after carrying out a burglary has been jailed after she returned to the city.

Heroin user Natalie Machin-cohen, right, broke into a student property in Shelton before driving away in the victim’s car in the early hours of September 29 last year.

As part of her sentence, the 31-year-old was sent to Wales and told to stay at Walk Ministries rehabilitation hostel after being given a second chance.

But Stoke-on-trent Crown Court heard she left Wales after five days and returned to the Potteries to stay with her mum.

Now Machin-cohen, of Newport Lane, Middleport, has been locked up for 12 months after breaching the requirements of her sentence.

Barry White, mitigating, said: “She has realised the position she’s placed herself in. She was put in a room with two other women she didn’t know. She was having difficulty.

“There was a requirement to retake her methadone script. She came back and has been living with her mother. She has found it difficult and people know her from her past drug use. She no longer uses monkey dust but takes heroin.”

Handing her the prison sentence, Judge David Fletcher told her: “Your record is quite lengthy for a young woman of your age. Last time you were given an opportunity and you didn’t comply with its requirements.

“Things may have been difficult but you should have thought of how much more difficult it would be if you go to jail. There’s nothing anybody can say to me today which can persuade me to do anything other than send you to prison.”