A thief hiding £100 of stolen goods in a pushchair left his two children in a supermarket car park as he ran away from police.
Connor Sharp, 24, abandoned the youngsters outside the store as he fled the scene when police tried to stop him over the items he was carrying.
He had loaded food and clothes into his child's pushchair in the Sainsbury's in Aylesford, Kent, and left the store without paying, it was alleged.
But Sharp was spotted by a staff member and police were called to the scene last September 7.
When officers arrived in the car park and started to approach Sharp, he ran off and left his children and the pushchair with his mother who was at the store at the same time.
Officers were unable to catch up with him, but he was arrested a couple of months later when he handed himself into a police station for a voluntary interview.
At Maidstone Magistrates Court on June 6, Sharp pleaded guilty to shoplifting.
The court heard Sharp, from Rochester, Kent, took the food for his children so they could eat.
The self-employed labourer had lost his job and had two children and a partner to take care of at the time while he was struggling financially.
Magistrates were told he was desperate to feed his children and panicked in the car park when he saw police.
He had committed offences before and was given a community order for them in 2018.
Debbie Jones, prosecuting, said: "He ran off when the officers arrived in the car park and left his children and the pushchair with the items in with his mother."
Sharp now has three children to provide for and was on Universal Credit, the court heard.
All the stolen goods were found by police on the day he took them.
Magistrates were told Sharp had asperger's syndrome and decided to give him an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay a victim surcharge of £26, plus £85 court costs.
