A PROLIFIC shoplifter from Thurrock has been jailed for 28 months and banned from entering shops in Stanford-le-Hope and Southend for five years.

Basildon Crown Court was told that Kyle Sherwin, 36, was a prolific offender who had previously committed offences while on bail as well as during the term of a suspended sentence.

Sherwin was only free because he had been given a suspended sentence when he commited his latest crimes.

The 12-month suspended prison sentence was then activated when Sherwin, of Dowland Close, Stanford-le-Hope, recenlty appeared before Basildon Crown Court charged with more offences.

He received a further 16-month prison sentence for nine thefts, totalling £667.50, from the Co-op in Stanford-le-Hope's High Street in January 2023.

And he was also issued with a five-year criminal behaviour order.

This forbids Sherwin to enter the Co-op in Stanford and the Tesco Express store in neighbouring King Street and the Kursaal, Eastern Esplanade, Southend.

Sherwin, who had admitted all the thefts, had been committed to Basildon Crown Court for sentence by Southend magistrates on 27 January after he was arrested the previous day and charged with the most recent nine shop thefts.

PC Alex Plakhtienko, of Essex Police's Business Crime Team, said Sherwin's offending had been serious and sustained and he had even verbally threatened someone who had tried to stop him leaving a shop with goods he had stolen.

The officer said: ""Shoplifting is not a victimless crime. Sherwin's behaviour affected customers and staff in the shops he targeted repeatedly over a number of months, even after he'd been arrested for similar offences.

"We have a duty to protect all victims of crime from repeat offenders.

"And one way we can do this is by applying to the courts for criminal behaviour orders which are designed to prevent their re-offending."

Sherwin received the 12-month suspended prison sentence last November after pleading guilty to a series of thefts from shops in Stanford-le-Hope and Southend in February, March and June 2022.

One of the thefts - £40 of detergent from Tesco Express in Stanford - was committed the day after Chelmsford magistrates had bailed him with conditions which stated he was excluded from the shop following his arrest for a string of similar thefts.

On 2 November 2022, Sherwin was sentenced to a total of 12 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work, to complete a Thinking Skills Programme and to pay a victim surcharge.

During that hearing, also at Basildon Crown Court, Sherwin had been banned from entering the Tesco Express and Co-op stores in Stanford le Hope, bans which were to be monitored electronically.

He had been arrested on 24 June 2022 for 19 thefts of meat, cheese, chocolate, coffee, washing products and household goods, totalling £852.05, from the two Tesco Express stores, the Co-op store and Farm Foods in Greyhound Way, Southend. The thefts, sometimes two or three a day, were committed between 21 February and 21 June 2022. Sherwin was also arrested for a public order offence in one of the shops on 7 March 2022.

The day after his arrest, Sherwin was bailed by magistrates but, the following day, he stole £40 of detergent from Tesco Express in Stanford le Hope. He was arrested again on 28 June in Southend after police officers stopped and searched him, recovering £158 of beauty products from Boots in Victoria Plaza.