Christine Brown, currently of Lewes, but formerly with a history of offending in Hastings, pleaded guilty to eight counts of shop theft, and was sentenced at Hastings Magistrates court on 6th November 2024 to 18 weeks in prison. She was also ordered to pay £85 in court costs, a £154 victim surcharge, and received a £40 fine for breaching conditions of an earlier conviction.
The prison sentence was suspended by magistrates for 18 months, conditional on her receiving no further convictions in that time. She was also ordered to attend drug rehabilitation and to take part in at least 15 rehab activity sessions.
Although no banning order was specifically requested by the police, Brown was also told she was not to enter the BP garage from where the court had heard she had been regularly stealing.
The magistrate stated that it was the court’s duty to protect the public from crime, and how in cases such as this it is the public who end up paying for the costs of shops losing stock to thieves.
He found that based on existing probation attendance for previous offences, including four further shop theft convictions from February and March earlier in the year, Brown’s prospects for rehabilitation were believed to reasonable. However, it had earlier been declared that she currently had 39 previous convictions for 68 offences.
It was made clear by the magistrate in handing down the suspended sentence that if Brown were to break any of the conditions he imposed she should expect to be back in court and be sent down to prison.
The eight thefts all took place in shops in Lewes, and were listed as:
- 16th June (£80)
- 17th June (£236)
- 20th June (£97)
- 7th July (£283)
- 7th September (£63)
- 8th September (£43)
- 13th September (£32)
- 26rth September (£50)
John Bownas, manager of Hastings ShopWatch scheme, said: “Christine Brown was well known to us some time ago and we had hoped she had changed her ways. Unfortunately it seems she simply moved on to begin a similar lifestyle in neighbouring Lewes.
“We hope that the probation and rehabilitation services can help her to deal with her problems so that shops are protected from her habit of stealing. “As the magistrate rightly pointed out, people who take goods from shops without paying are directly responsible for those shops having to charge more to everyone else. It was recently stated by one national chain that they estimate the cost to be a ‘shoplifting tax’ of 10p on every transaction in their stores.”
