MOUNTING debts drove a depressed carer to steal twice from an Ipswich supermarket, a court heard.Christopher Taylor, of Mill Lane, Lower Somersham, stole electrical goods twice in eight days from Sainsbury's on Hadleigh Road to help pay back his borrowing.

MOUNTING debts drove a depressed carer to steal twice from an Ipswich supermarket, a court heard.

Christopher Taylor, of Mill Lane, Lower Somersham, stole electrical goods twice in eight days from Sainsbury's on Hadleigh Road to help pay back his borrowing.

Taylor – a full time carer for his wife – was spotted carrying two television sets worth £160 out of the supermarket on January 30, South East Suffolk Magistrates were told.

Staff found he was the same man who took a £140 TV and video out of the store eight days earlier. He lifted the box over the security beam at the exit to avoid activating the alarm.

Grey-haired Taylor, 46, who appeared distraught in court admitted both thefts.

"He stole the goods in question with a view to selling them," prosecutor Gareth Davies told magistrates. He refused to name who he sold the TV and video on to.

The thefts put him in breach of a three-year conditional discharge for driving while disqualified in April last year.

Taylor, who admitted the thefts, looked distraught throughout the short hearing.

The court heard it was an "unsophisticated" offence and there were several background issues.

Taylor suffers from stress and depression and looks after his wife of ten years who has brain damage.

Reports were ordered before sentencing at the Ipswich courthouse on March 4.