FREEDOM lasted less than a week for the thief caught by sharp-eyed staff at a York shop.

Persistent shoplifter Philip George Mitchell, 30, is starting 24 weeks in jail for a catalogue of offences, which included his ill-fated raid on the Costcutter store in Heworth Road.

York magistrates decided enough was enough, after hearing how he had repeatedly flouted court attempts to reform him and help him kick the drug habit that turned him to crime.

The sentences he ignored included the 12-month conditional discharge he got on July 29 after he admitted stealing a box of washing-up tablets from Costcutters the previous day.

Staff members Sajid Shah and Muhammad Afzal had caught him in the act, carried out a citizen's arrest and held him until police arrived.

Officers kept him in custody overnight. The next day Mitchell, of the Arc Light Centre, Leeman Road, York, walked out of York Magistrates Court a free man, just as he had two days earlier when he also got a 12-month conditional discharge. On that occasion he had admitted stealing nine cans of deodorant worth £24.41 from Lloyds Pharmacy in Gillygate, York.

On each occasion, magistrates had warned him that he could be resentenced for his crimes if he committed another offence within a year.

That did not stop him shoplifting two bottles of aftershave worth £59 on Wednesday. This time when he appeared before magistrates and admitted his crime, the magistrates' patience had run out.

Andrew Moss, of the probation service, told them Mitchell had not attended any of the compulsory appointments with his colleagues that formed a court order imposed before July 27. It had included drug rehabilitation sessions.

Drug intervention programme worker Nicky Smith, who works for the drug rehabilitation organisation Compass, told the bench Mitchell had twice attended meetings with a colleague of hers since his last court appearance. The organisation was hoping to arrange for him to be prescribed an anti-heroin drug to help him kick his habit.

Magistrates said he was unable or unwilling to tackle his offending behaviour and though his stealing was part of his drug dependency, the only solution was to lock him up.

Updated: 10:35 Monday, August 08, 2005