Black Friday thief claims she ‘left her credit card in the car’

ONE Black Friday The shop owner, who had stolen items worth hundreds of pounds, told the police who arrested her that she had forgotten her credit card.

Maria Smith, 39, was released from prison for several weeks after joining the Black Friday crowd at a York department store.

Smith chose £363 worth of perfume clothing and gift sets in the store, but unlike other shoppers went straight to the door, not a visit.

But employees followed and Smith was stopped outside the store.

After being arrested by the police, she claimed that she entered the department store with ‘the intention of doing some Christmas shopping’.

But once inside, she realized she had left her credit card in the car and went out to get it – with a shopping item she hadn’t paid for.

Smith, who said she lived on a caravan estate in Hull, East Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to burglary at York Magistrates Court, where she was born out of cells.

Martin Butterworth, the prosecutor, said she was released from prison a few weeks ago for violating a court order on a previous crime.

Putting her in jail for 16 weeks, district judge Adrian Lower told her: ‘I don’t believe for a moment that your credit card was in the car.

‘If it is, you will bring it with you when you enter the store.

‘He purposely went to York to steal. It is just dishonest and it is going here to be dishonest in York. ‘

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