‘Career shoplifter’ with 148 previous offences stole beauty products, clothes and booze from Leeds shops

Dilwyn Hoare was returned to jail after admitting nine new offences, adding to the 148 he already has to his name.

The judge at Leeds Crown Court, Recorder of Leeds Guy Kearl KC told him: “You are released (from prison) and you go out on a spree of identical offending. You have chosen a career as a shoplifter and going to prison is just one of the hazards of that occupation.

"They are repeated attacks on retail stores. It’s a campaign of stealing which forms a systematic pattern of your offending. I have no confidence that you would stop offending.”

Forty-five-year-old Hoare, of Dennil Crescent, Manston, stole £2,300 worth of beauty products from Boots at The Springs at Thorpe Park during three visits in May and July of last year.

He also stole £166 worth of razors from Asda in Killingbeck in August, and £45 worth of whisky and beer 10 days later. In September he travelled to Asda in Otley and stole £200 worth of items, £100 worth of meat from M&S in Leeds, and then four visits to Next in Leeds across September and October to steal £650 worth of clothes. On most of those visits, he was accompanied by others who assisted him.

A probation report suggested he had been offered “every intervention possible” over the years, having first come to the their attention in 1995, and that he repeatedly failed to comply with court orders.

Mitigating on his behalf, Craig Sutcliffe said Hoare’s heroin habit had been at the root of his offending, but during his time spent on remand in HMP Leeds since his arrest, he had abstained from seeking out illicit drugs and was on a methadone programme.

He said he had reduced his prescription intake, and the debts he owed to dealers from taking drugs had been cleared so his need to shoplift had now gone.

Recorder Kearl said to Hoare: “You need to steer clear of drugs and drug dealers.” He gave him 20 months’ jail.