Thursday, 10 September 2015

MAN WALKS AWAY SCOT-FREE AFTER BEING ARRESTED 400 TIMES FOR SAME OFFENCE








Britain's most prolific shoplifter Glen Stacey has walked free from court despite clocking up 400 offences.

The 56-year-old bit the security tag off a leg of lamb and hid a copy of Grazia magazine in his bag at his local Aldi supermarket.

He had planned to give the magazine to his girlfriend as a gift and sell the meat.

Blackpool magistrates were told he had 281 previous convictions and that the latest theft marked the 400th time he had been caught shoplifting.

Stacey became Britain's most prolific thief earlier this year when he overtook Robert Knowles, 68, from Plymouth. Knowles had clocked up 350 offences by the time he was jailed in July for stealing a pair of M&S trousers.

District Judge, Jeff Brailsford, gave Stacey, of Blackpool, a 28-day jail term suspended for six months, telling him: "I might have hoped when you got to 281 convictions, you might have thought about stopping."

Prosecutor, Pam Smith, told magistrates: "The defendant has a very extensive record for similar offending."

Knowles, who has clocked up 350 offences, was jailed in July for stealing a pair of M&S trousers - which he complained were too small when police found him wearing them.

But Stacey, of South Shore, Lancashire, escaped with a suspended prison sentence despite his appalling record and breaching a CRASBO (criminal anti-social behaviour order).

That had banned him from entering Blackpool town centre because of his record.

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