Thief who ransacked honey and clothes from store jailed
SHE HAD PREVIOUSLY BURGLED HER OWN GRANDMOTHER
A 30-year-old shoplifter who was given the chance to avoid prison for burgling her own grandmother’s house has blown the opportunity by stealing again.
Derby Crown Court heard how BillyJean Summers cleared a shelf of highquality honey, swept it into a holdall and left.
Days later she entered the same Long Eaton supermarket and fled out the fire door with £100 of children’s clothing.
And despite her barrister telling the hearing his client wants the help she needs to rid herself of drugs, she was sent to prison.
Jailing her for 15 months, Judge Jonathan Bennett said: “Miss Summers you are 30 years of age and you have a significant drug problem.
“You have a troubled background, you were in care and I have read about some of the things that happened to you.
“In March 2020 you were convicted of burgling your grandmother’s house, but the court were persuaded not to send you to prison, no doubt because of your difficult background.
“In July 2021 you were handed a conditional discharge for four counts of theft and within two days you repaid the trust the courts put in you by committing the first of these offences.
“This was not theft of a pack of Maltesers because you were hungry, this was you clearing a whole shelf of honey into a holdall.
“Then, days after that you went back to the same store and stole £100 of children’s clothing.
“This can’t carry on, I cannot trust you at this moment.”
In March 2020, Summers was handed a 10-month jail term, suspended for two years, when she pleaded guilty to burgling her gran’s home in Borrowash.
She entered the property in Hawthorne Avenue without the permission of her relative and stole from it sometime between May 3 and 7, 2018.
She then disappeared only to be arrested and later charged.
Thomas Welshman, prosecuting this week, said her latest offences saw her twice enter Asda in Long Eaton, on July 31 and August 3 stealing £262 of highquality honey and children’s clothing.
He told the hearing she has 19 previous convictions for 36 offences.
Summers, of Bostocks Lane, Long Eaton pleaded guilty to two counts of shoplifting and for being in breach of her suspended sentence.
Chris Aspinall, mitigating, said his client stole as she had no money and a drug addiction to feed.
He said: “She tells me she is still hopeful she is going to be given the help she needs, particularly with (getting off) drugs.
“The difficulty is that each time she gets released (from prison) she is released without any (help) package and that is something she is struggling with.
“There is evidence she can function in the community without resorting to shop theft. There is every opportunity here for her.”