Booze thief who forgot to fill up her getaway car is spared jail

A woman whose car ran out of petrol in a supermarket car park after she shoplifted a large amount of alcohol has been given a suspended sentence. Rose Devlin, 59, from Ebsworth Street, Moston, was caught on CCTV wheeling the drinks out of Asda's Chadderton store in Oldham in June. She repeated the offence at the Hulme store in Manchester in October. Devlin said she was "just a shoplifter" and was not sorry. "I've done it all my life and I don't regret it," she said.

At Manchester Crown Court, she was given an eight month sentence, suspended for 22 months. Devlin stole around £400 worth of alcohol from the Chadderton store on Monday 6 June, but as she tried to drive away, she found she had no petrol in the car. A man helped her push the car to the supermarket's petrol station, where she purchased fuel before driving away. The CCTV footage of the theft was passed to police for investigation.



Devlin was then arrested after trying to repeat the theft at Asda's Hulme store on 1 October, when she shoplifted around £150 worth of alcohol. Judge Roger Thomas told her she had not taken part in "casually stealing food stuff for an evening meal, these were professional actions for selling on. If you start this sort of behaviour again, you could face several years in prison," he said. But speaking after the trial, Devlin said she had "no remorse" and that she was "just a shoplifter".

"I wouldn't say sorry to a judge, I'm not sorry - I'm just a shoplifter who ran out of petrol." She said she deserved to go to prison, but "the judge thought he'd give me a chance. "I've done jail before so it doesn't really matter," said Devlin. She said the only thing she regretted was "all the publicity I'm getting. If I was a paedophile or a murderer, I wouldn't get half as much publicity."

With news video.