Carlisle mum who stole £56 worth of jewellery given prison warning

By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 12:35, Monday, 07 January 2013

A PERSISTENT shoplifter has been given one last chance to keep out of trouble before being sent to prison.

Mother-of-two Amanda Norris, 30, was visibly shaking – clearly expecting to be locked up after breaking the terms of a previous suspended jail sentence – as she stood in front of Carlisle’s top judge, Paul Batty QC, at the city’s crown court for stealing £56.50 worth of jewellery from a shop.

But the judge told her that because of her “difficulties” – which were not divulged in court – it would not be necessary to send her to prison.

“But this really is the last chance you will get,” he told her. “I hope you understand that.”

The court heard that on November 16 Norris, of Close Street, off Botchergate, had been caught with jewellery she had taken from Claire’s Accessories in The Lanes.

She told police after her arrest she had taken a few items because she had no money for the Christmas presents her goddaughters had said they wanted.

The theft put Norris in breach of a 10-month suspended prison sentence passed on her in April last year after she admitted burgling the home of Paul McQuaid, who was then her neighbour in Cant Crescent, Upperby.

Norris, a long-term drug addict, had been found standing in Mr McQuaid’s kitchen, with a box of chocolates – which, though they had been given to him as a present by someone else, she claimed she had gone into the house to give him for Christmas.

He later discovered she had taken not just the chocolates but two bottles of fake tan, a charm bracelet, a pair of jeans, a silver ring, some mascara, two watches and some hair straighteners.

Judge Batty gave Norris a 12-month community order – with 12 months’ probation supervision and six months drugs rehabilitation – and ordered her to pay a £60 victim surcharge.

He warned her that the suspended sentence was still in effect so she could go to prison if she commits any further offences.

First published at 11:23, Monday, 07 January 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk