A PROLIFIC shoplifter who faced prison has been put under a curfew instead.

Darlington Magistrates’ Court heard today (Tuesday, January 15) that 55-year-old Trevor Foulds stole two bottles of Jeyes cleaning fluid from the town’s Boyes store on January 5, putting himself in breach of a suspended sentence.

Foulds, of Beverley Road, Sunderland, pleaded guilty to the theft and the court heard that he was given a 24-week prison sentence last June, suspended for two years, which could be activated by his latest offence.

Mo Sibert of Darlington’s probation service said that Foulds’ record of offending stretched over four decades but that he had recently been working with a probation team in Sunderland who recommended he was put under a curfew order.

Magistrates agreed and imposed a split curfew to limit Foulds’ opportunities to shoplift, meaning that for the next three months he is not allowed out of his house between the hours of 10am to noon and 2pm to 4pm.

He was also ordered to pay £85 court costs and a £60 victim surcharge.