A supermarket worker who stole mobile phones and iPods worth nearly £4,000 will be sentenced next week.

Fiona Bell, 31, admitted stealing dozens of phones and iPods valued at £3,691 from Asda in Kingstown over three months.

Prosecutor Pam Ward said the theft came to light last year after the owner of a phone and music trading store in Scotch Street, Carlisle, became suspicious of a woman in an Asda uniform who repeatedly visited and sold phones and iPods.

He contacted the London Road branch of Asda to report this. Inquiries revealed that a Samsung 4 mobile phone had been removed from the store at the store's Kingstown branch of Asda. Four more phones were missing.

It emerged that 33 phones had disappeared from the store between July 7 of last year and September 28. All but one were sold to the Carlisle store.

The defendant was implicated after staff at the Scotch Street shop were shown a photo of the defendant and they confirmed that she was the woman who sold the phones and iPods.

At the city's Rickergate magistrates' court today, Bell, 31, of Church Square, Rigg, near Gretna, asked for the case to be adjourned because she had no defence solicitor. She will be sentenced next Tuesday and was granted bail. In an earlier hearing, the court heard that she had resigned and felt remorseful.