A THIEF who joined Black Friday shopping crowds in York to carry out a shoplifting raid will spend Christmas behind bars.

Maria Smith, 39, chose clothing and perfume gift sets worth £363 at Fenwick and walked out with them without paying, said Martin Butterworth, prosecuting.

But staff were on the lookout and she was stopped outside the department store.

After police arrested her, she claimed she had come to York with the "intention of doing some Christmas shopping", said the assistant prosecutor.

District judge Adrian Lower rejected her claim. "You deliberately came to York to steal," he told her.

"It was just dishonesty and it is travelling here to be dishonest in York.

"I hope that sending you to prison will send a message to people who come to York to steal there is a price to pay."

He jailed Smith for 16 weeks.

Smith, who said she lived on a caravan site in Hull, pleaded guilty to theft.

Mr Butterworth said she had only been released from jail a couple of weeks ago for breaching a court order imposed for a previous offence and was also on post sentence supervision from a 14-week prison sentence.

For Smith, Nick Woodhouse said she had come to York where she had had a drink with friends and then gone into Fenwick "with a view to buying some clothes".

But once inside, she realised she had left her credit card in the car and went out to get it.

"I don't believe for one moment that your credit card was in the car," the judge told her. "If it was, you would have taken it with you into the shop."

The normal response of an honest person discovering that they had left their credit card in the car was to leave their shopping with a member of staff, asking them to look after it, while they went to fetch the card, the court heard.

Mr Butterworth said security staff spotted Smith on Friday afternoon in the department store in Coppergate Centre.

She went up to the first floor where she took "a number of items" of clothing and gift sets before going back down to the ground floor and out of the store.

Following her arrest on Friday, police kept her in the cells at Fulford Road Police Station throughout the weekend before sending her in custody to York Magistrates' Court.

She had been jailed for seven days by South Yorkshire magistrates on November 11 for breaching a supervision order.

In June, she was jailed for 14 weeks in Greater Manchester for a racially aggravated offence.

Mr Woodhouse said she had moved to Hull from London.

York was very busy on Friday as shoppers made the most of Black Friday promotions.