A BURGLAR with a long-standing drug habit has been jailed after a judge said she needed to be off the streets.

Samantha Jessop committed her third house burglary when she stole a tablet computer from a flat in central Middlesbrough, meaning a mandatory three-year jail sentence.

The Recorder of Middlesbrough, Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, sitting at Teesside Crown Court, described the 33-year-old as a “persistent shoplifter” and said the courts had given her all manner of sentences, but to no avail.

He said: “The time has come when I am afraid society has to be rid of her for a time.”

Jessop, of Henry Street, North Ormesby, was with a friend when she lent through an open window and stole a £250 Samsung tablet from an unoccupied flat in Salisbury Court, Middlesbrough, on July 26 this year.

She stashed the tablet in some nearby bushes, although it was recovered by police and the defendant was arrested.

Jessop had two previous burglaries on her record, although there was a significant gap of several years between the first in 2002 and the second in 2011. She had also committed offences of dishonesty and previously admitted possessing drugs.

Zoe Pasfield, mitigating, said Jessop was making good progress with her heroin habit and had re-established contact with her children.

She attempted to argue there were “exceptional circumstances” with the case and tried to persuade Judge Bourne-Arton to adjourn as no report on her from the probation service was available.

But the judge disagreed and said he would go ahead and sentence Jessop regardless.

Addressing her, he said: “This is your third burglary and therefore you qualify for a mandatory sentence of imprisonment.

“There are no reasons not to impose that.”

From a starting point of three years, Judge Bourne-Arton deducted a 20 per cent discount for Jessop’s guilty plea to the burglary.

She was jailed for a total of two years, 146 days.