A shoplifter is back behind bars after she stole a charity box from a West Cumbrian branch of the British Heart Foundation.
Kimberley Bennewith, 35, pleaded guilty to a total of three charges when she appeared in front of magistrates at Carlisle’s Rickergate court.
Bennewith admitted stealing the charity box and contents with an unknown value from the British Heart Foundation’s Pow Street premises in Workington on Thursday June 13.
Bennewith, of Birks Road, Cleator Moor, further admitted assaulting an emergency worker — a female PC — in the execution of her duty on the same date.
She also admitted breaching a criminal behaviour order by entering the Subway outlet in Workington last Thursday.
That order had been imposed two days earlier, on Tuesday June 11, at Workington Magistrates’ Court. This was at the request of police in a bid to curb Bennewith’s offending, and to protect businesses and members of the public.
Bennewith had admitted stealing alcohol, meats and household items worth more than £850 from a Sainsbury’s store in Carlisle; and a theft from a city Tesco supermarket — all on separate dates in July last year.
For her latest criminal offending, in Workington, she was handed an immediate jail sentence totalling 24 weeks.
Magistrates concluded that only immediate imprisonment could be justified as Bennewith had stolen from a charity, while subject to a court order which had been imposed days earlier and in view of a poor criminal record featuring more than 150 offences. That included previous charity box thefts.
