A HEROIN addict has been jailed for three-and-a-half months for a York crime spree involving 22 offences, mostly against shops in the city.

York magistrates heard that Victoria Sampson, 23, repeatedly went on the run as the courts tried to deal with her for the dishonesty that included a £554 two-day spending spree with a stolen bank card.

Prosecutor Vivienne Walsh said Sampson stole clothes and food in the city centre and at Jackson's store in Bishopthorpe Road and worked with an accomplice once when the pair snatched clothes worth £260 from Digby's, in Low Ousegate.

The court heard that for some of the time she was offending, she should have been carrying out a community rehabilitation order.

But her solicitor, Craig Robertson, said the probation service had not begun working with her until October, part-way through the offences.

Sampson, who gave an address in Sowerby Road, Acomb, pleaded guilty to six thefts, two deceptions, one attempted deception, one handling of a stolen bank card all committed between June 21 and January 29. She asked for seven similar offences to be taken into consideration. She also admitted five failures to attend court and two breaches of community rehabilitation orders.

Magistrates jailed Sampson for 108 days. They said she had failed to respond to two non-custodial sentences imposed in July and October last year for dishonesty. Mr Robertson said she did not have the ability to break out of her heroin addiction. She was effectively homeless, living hand to mouth and in accommodation provided by friends and living a "classic, chaotic" heroin addict's lifestyle. She also had family problems.

Updated: 10:32 Wednesday, March 26, 2003