A crack addict has been banned from every Boots shop in the country and jailed for a prolific shoplifting campaign. Emma Berry, 36, repeatedly targeted a branch of the health and beauty retailer in Tameside, pilfering cosmetics from the store on eight separate occasions.
When she was challenged by a store worker, Berry told the woman: "I don't give a f***. Don't f****** come near me. There's f*** all you can do about it."
But weeks after the final time she struck at the store on Mossley Road in Ashton-under-Lyne, Berry has now been sent to prison. "There are consequences, those consequences you are seeing now," the judge, Recorder Imran Shafi KC told her during a hearing at Manchester Crown Court.
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Berry, who wept throughout Thursday's sentencing hearing, already had the threat of a possible spell in jail hanging over her after being handed a suspended sentence in 2021 for robbery. Her barrister appealed for Berry to be given 'one final chance', but the judge, who said she was 'hopelessly addicted to crack cocaine', refused and instead sent her to prison for eight months.
"You have been given chance, after chance, after chance," Recorder Shafi said. "It seems to me that you have had plenty of chances to show that you can rehabilitate.
"There will come a time when custody is the only remaining option." Prosecuting, Mark Pritchard told how Berry had stolen products worth about £600 from the same store on several occasions between December last year and February this year.
She became abusive to a store worker after being challenged when she'd helped herself to some ladies razors and eye lashes. On other occasions she stole shampoo, shower gel and deodorant.
In a statement read in court, the shop worker asked 'why should Emma be allowed to get away with this?', while urging the court to 'hold her accountable for her abusive behaviour'. The shoplifting put her in breach of a suspended sentence passed at the same court in 2021. She admitted robbery after recruiting a homeless man to rob a drunk she had met in a pub.
Berry rifled through her victim's pockets and stole his phone, cash and cigarettes after her accomplice had threatened to smash a bottle over his head. Defending, Harriet Tighe said Berry had turned to drugs as a way of coping after suffering a 'number of traumatic instances in her life'.
She said Berry had been offered drug rehabilitation support by the probation service and appealed for her to be given a chance. But the judge refused and told Berry: "I would be failing in my public duty if I didn't send you to prison today."
A criminal behaviour order was also imposed, which bans Berry from entering any Boots store across the country for the next three years. Berry, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to eight charges of theft and a further offence of using threatening words or behaviour. She will serve half of her eight month sentence in prison.
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