THIEVES stole 22 pairs of shoes and 19 cashmere sweaters in a double raid on Marks & Spencer stores in York, a court heard.

Leslie Taylor and Michael Rawcliffe had carried out a joint raid on one of the firm’s Nottingham stores before they visited York on March 6 last year with Taylor’s wife, Carol, York Crown Court heard.

In less than an hour, the trio stole the 22 pairs of shoes worth £851 from Marks & Spencer’s Monks Cross store and the 19 sweaters worth £1,425 from the firm’s Pavement store, said Jonathan Boumphrey, prosecuting.

Their actions raised the suspicion of staff, who alerted police and together with police they tracked the trio as they rode the escalators down towards the city-centre store’s entrance.

Halfway down, Carol Taylor shouted the alarm and the three fled, only to be caught after a short chase, one in the street and two in their getaway car.

Rawcliffe, 32, of St James Street, Doncaster, admitted two charges of theft on the basis that he did not realise what the Taylors were up to until they arrived in York together.

The Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, said that whether or not he knew all along, “this was a trip to York to steal property that could be sold in the Doncaster area”.

Leslie Taylor, 50, of Prospect Place, Doncaster, and Carol Taylor, 39, of no known address, also admitted the same charges. She was not in court and her barrister, Chloe Fairley, said her lawyers could not contact her as she had left the marital home without leaving a forwarding address.

The judge issued a warrant for her to attend.

After hearing claims from barristers for both men that they had reformed their lives in the year since their arrests, he deferred sentence for six months on condition they do not commit any crime and save up to cover the costs of prosecuting them.

“If the wool is being pulled over my eyes, due consequences will follow,” he warned them. “You are being put on trust for six months.”

He promised not to impose an immediate prison sentence if they go straight.

For Leslie Taylor, Nicholas Barker said he had not started shoplifting until after he met his wife.

Their marriage had broken up in December, the court was told.