A shoplifter has been jailed after repeatedly stealing vacuum cleaners from B&M stores.
James Baker walked out on four occasions without paying for Henry vacuums worth £150.
The 28-year-old admitted a total of six shop thefts, including a Beldray vacuum worth £45 from B&M and £250 of alcohol from Asda, when he appeared at Suffolk Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
Baker, of Bramford Road, Ipswich, also admitted breaching a court order and post-sentence supervision requirements at the time of the thefts – between September 21 and October 5.
Prosecutor Wayne Ablett said Baker was stopped by security staff outside Asda, in Stoke Park Drive, Ipswich, and forced to return £250 of alcohol on September 21.
He was later identified on CCTV footage as being responsible for stealing five vacuums from B&M – along with a speaker worth £100 from the Anglia Retail Park branch on September 24.
Mr Ablett said Baker, who tested positive for cocaine and opiates in custody, had 20 previous convictions for 55 offences.
He said Baker was in breach of a 12-month conditional discharge, passed at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court in September for handling stolen goods, and a requirement to keep phone appointments with the probation service following his release from a jail term imposed in February for more thefts.
Calvin Saker, mitigating, said Baker had been sleeping rough until recently and had lost the mobile phone on which he should have kept appointments with the probation service.
He said Baker had been given a community order in September 2018, with a drug rehabilitation requirement, which he maintained until receiving a suspended sentence for breaching a restraining order the following February.
“From that point on, he lost the rehabilitation requirement, and it’s been a revolving door to prison,” added Mr Saker, who said Baker was using drugs only to top-up his methadone prescription and was still willing to engage with the probation service.
“The nettle has been grasped,” he told magistrates.
“I ask you to allow this stabilising factor to remain.
“There is a simple pattern here; that could be explored more effectively than by simply sending him to prison.”
Baker was jailed for 14 weeks and ordered to repay £745 for the stolen items.
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