A PROFESSIONAL shoplifter was jailed by a judge who told her: “The court has run out of options.”

Repeat offender Kirsten Shearman, 40, had been given a lifeline in October when a six-month prison term was suspended for a year at Carlisle Crown Court.

Shearman, said to be a heroin addict, was given a “final chance” after adding five shop thefts to her ever-increasing rap sheet. By that time, she was also subject to the tough terms of a criminal behaviour order (CBO) which banned her from entering stores in Cleator Moor, Cockermouth and Whitehaven.

This was later updated to include other outlets she had targeted.

However, Shearman was back at the court yesterday having admitted a string of other similar offences.

She had stolen clothing from ASDA at Workington’s Dunmail Park in mid-September and then alcohol from Oddies in Cockermouth later that month. In early January, she visited Keswick’s George Fisher shop three times in four days, snatching expensive ladies’ outdoor jackets worth a total of £1,610.

Shearman, of St Leonard’s Close, Cockermouth, then flouted the CBO on January 31 by entering Workington’s Peacocks shop.

Brendan Burke, defending, spoke of Shearman’s addiction to heroin, health problems and of her having “hit rock bottom”. He asked Judge Nicholas Barker “to mitigate the sentence so it doesn’t extinguish the hope she has got”.

Judge Barker had said of Shearman earlier in the hearing: “She is a professional shoplifter ... It’s what she does.”

Sentencing her, he said: “It is not simply that the court has run out of patience. It is simply this: the court has run out of options. There is nothing feasible that the court can do with you.

“By your own actions and by your own decisions you have placed yourself in this position.”

Shearman was jailed for 11 months. The updated CBO will remain in force.