Mansfield shoplifting suspects appear in court as part of police crackdown

Officers, who last week joined colleagues from the retail community in a collaborative day of action to address the issue, have been treating shop theft as a priority crime for several months.

Members of the town centre policing team have been working hard to identify repeat offenders and target them accordingly – including with restrictive civil court orders to ban them from certain areas.

On Monday, officers arrested 26-year-old Troy Dyer after a number of shop thefts in recent weeks.

Dyer, of Grasmere Court, Mansfield, later pleaded guilty to three counts of shop theft. He was given a community order and directed to complete drug rehabilitation treatment.

On Wednesday, 35-year-old Ashley Lawrence was arrested on suspicion of stealing hundreds of pounds worth of items from Boots and a local newsagents.

Appearing at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court on Thursday she was charged with three counts of theft and remanded into custody.

Finally, a 27-year-old woman was also arrested on suspicion of seven counts of shop theft and was released on conditional police bail.

Inspector Kylie Davies, district commander for Mansfield, said: “Last week we sat down with shopworkers, security staff and other key local partners to discuss this issue and work out ways to improve our resilience.

“That’s because we understand the very significant impact this offending has on local businesses, shopworkers and the town as a whole.

“We are fortunate in Mansfield not only to have a very experienced and knowledgeable team of officers, but also to have good intelligence about the small number of local people who account for a lot of our retail crime.

“We know that many of those offenders are stealing to fund drug addictions, so – while prison sentences form a vital part of people’s punishments – we are also fully supportive of efforts to address the root causes of people offending and maintain strong links with local charities and support organisations.”