A SHOPLIFTER has been jailed after he stole electronic items twice in four days from the same superstore.

Martin Coxon’s behaviour was so suspicious on his second visit to Tesco’s Clifton Moor store, in York, a member of staff tracked his movements as he met an accomplice in Aisle 15, said Martin Butterworth, prosecuting.

When Coxon and the second man ran out of the building with two Nintendo DS consoles and a scarf, the employee chased them.

She lost sight of them, but noted part of the registration number of the car they used. Police searched the area and found the car with the pair and two other men inside in nearby Clifton Moorgate and arrested all four.

They also found the stolen consoles and when they searched Coxon, a small amount of cannabis.

Coxon was on police bail at the time and was in breach of a conditional discharge.

Four days earlier, on December 8, Coxon and another man had taken three Sony PS3 and Xbox consoles worth together £765 from the same store. The Sony consoles have not been found.

Coxon, 26, of Kingsway North, Clifton, York, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft and one of possessing cannabis for his own use.

Magistrates said the shop thefts were pre-planned and high value and committed at a time when he was already on bail and jailed him for 12 weeks.

Coxon’s solicitor, Sally Howar,d pleaded for him to be given a sentence that would enable him to be with his family as his brother was paralysed from the neck down and had recently been released after three years in a hospital ward. He had had to spend Christmas away from them because magistrates had remanded him in custody following his arrest.

He had been so depressed and upset by his brother’s state, he had taken cannabis to block out the pain. He had stolen the computer equipment to pay off drug debts. The first theft had achieved that and he was now planning to stay off drugs.