Brazen thief jailed

Oct 5 2012 by Stephen Robertson, Stirling Observer

A shoplifter who made off with more than £1000 worth of fragrances from a Stirling store has been jailed.

Stirling Sheriff Court heard on Wednesday how Paul McGibbon (35) casually sauntered into Debenhams in the city’s Thistles Centre and started helping himself to stock in the store’s cosmetics section.

Fiscal depute Emma White said that a CCTV operator at the store spotted McGibbon, whom he recognised, and kept an eye on him as he wandered around the store.

She told the court: “He [the CCTV operator] saw the accused select several bottles of perfume and aftershave, place them in a bag and make his way out of the locus.”

However, McGibbon didn’t get very far and when he was caught he immediately handed back the stolen goods.

These were later valued as being worth a total of £1056.62.

McGibbon, from Glasgow, later pleaded guilty to the theft, which took place in Debenhams on September 16 this year.

His solicitor Leanne Murphy told the court that McGibbon’s offending had coincided with the suspected diagnosis of a serious illness for which he had required hospital treatment. As regards the shoplifting offence, she insisted that her client had not committed the theft to fund any sort of addiction.

She said that it had been committed for him “purely to live on” due to the fact that McGibbon had fallen into arrears paying his housing and utility bills.

The court was also told that all of the items stolen by McGibbon were later recovered and that he had pleaded guilty to the offence at the earliest opportunity.

Sheriff Fiona Tait then jailed McGibbon for 160 days for the theft.

This was backdated to September 17, when McGibbon was first remanded.