Crack cocaine addict jailed after string of raids on South Shields shops

Jordan Martin, 26, of Whitehead Street, South Shields, is starting 22 weeks behind bars after a judge told him it was the only way to end his offending.

Martin pinched from the supermarket chain’s Binchester Street branch at Simonside, South Shields, three times between Monday, January 18, and Sunday, February 7.

The first offence was just three days after he had appeared in court to admit stealing from it another three times since New Year’s Day, netting £210 of items.

For those crimes, he was given a 12-month community order, placed on a drug rehabilitation programme and outlawed from entering the shop.

But his latest hearing heard the dad had not grasped the opportunity but had instead returned to crime after failing to kick his drugs’ habit.

Prosecutor Glenda Beck told South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court Martin also struck at the same store on Sunday, January 24.

She said: “On January 18, a member of staff saw the defendant enter and pick up two packs of Gillette razor blades.

“He put them in his pocket and left without payment. He was identified from CCTV. The witness knows him from previous incidents.

“On January 24, CCTV shows the defendant entering and taking items, meat and other goods, and putting them inside his shirt.

“And on February 7, a member of staff saw the defendant on CCTV enter the shop and pick up £20 of chocolate and leave without paying.

“Officers attended Whitehead Street and he was duly arrested. He offered no comment. The goods were not recovered.”

Mrs Beck said Martin’s crime spree also included the theft of £187 of stock from the One Stop shop in Whiteleas Way, Whiteleas, South Shields, on Saturday, February 6.

Michelle Stonley, defending, said: “He started taking crack cocaine again. This has led to him committing these shop thefts.

“Mr Martin is only 26, but I have to accept that he has an appalling record of offences, which is mainly due to his addiction to drugs.

“If you feel this has to be a prison sentence, I ask you to keep it to a minimum.”

District Judge Kathryn Meek told Martin: “You know what’s coming. You have an awful record for offences of theft.

“There is no alternative other than to impose an immediate custodial sentence.”

Judge Meek resentenced Martin for his first group of three thefts, as well an admitted public order offence, and handed him a seven-week jail term.

For the January 18 offence, she gave him a seven-week jail term, to run consecutively, and a seven-week concurrent sentence for the January 24 offence.

She sentenced him to seven weeks, to run consecutively, for the February 6 crime, and to a seven-week concurrent sentence for the February 7 theft.

Martin, who pleaded guilty to four thefts and to breaching January’s community order, also got a further week, to run consecutively, in lieu of payment of fines.

He must pay a £128 victim surcharge.

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