By Staff Reporter

Published at 16:36, Wednesday, 10 October 2012

A SERIAL shoplifter who terrorised female staff while pilfering had his sentence cut by top judges.

Robert Walter Farren, of Raffles Avenue, Carlisle, was originally jailed for two years at Carlisle Crown Court after admitting theft and assault causing actual bodily harm in May this year.

Farren, 53, was confronted by two female shop assistants at Poundland, in Scotch Street, when he was seen acting suspiciously, London’s Appeal Court heard.

He refused to allow them to look inside his bag, and when they grabbed hold of his jacket to detain him, he wriggled out of it to escape.

One of the women, Anita Lynn, was hurt in the ensuing scuffle, said Mr Justice Holroyde, and Farren “made as if to punch” one of the women before fleeing the shop with £9 worth of cleaning products.

The judge said Farren’s criminal record made “depressing reading”, he having been sentenced on “70 occasions for 167 offences” but the goods stolen were of “modest value” and the violence used was at the lower end of the scale. The sentences were therefore cut from two years to 16 months.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk