'Spice girl' shoplift gang fleeced West End

The serial shoplifters stole from stores in London's West End, piling the goods into bin bags before going back for more, Southwark Crown Court heard.

One of the offenders was so weighed down with stolen clothes that she struggled to walk.

The six women, three of whom were sentenced today, were arrested on October 2 last year after police witnessed the women sorting through the garments in a road off Oxford Street.

They had taken clothes from shops including Gap, Next and Oasis.

All of the women pleaded guilty at an earlier date to either conspiracy to steal or handling stolen goods.

Judge James Wadsworth QC said: "What you pleaded guilty to was in my view, in respect of all of you, organised and professional shop lifting on a large scale.

"That is a serious problem in the West End and it is people like you who make it a serious problem."

Prosecutor Sally Fudge said clothing worth £15,000 was recovered after the women were arrested.

She said: "This is a gang of organised shop lifters.

"For the bulk of shop lifting that characterises this case, the gang was organised into those who carried out the stealing and others who assisted in the removal of the items from the area, allowing them to carry out more thefts."

Melissa Grant, 39, of St Stephens Gardens, west London, was sentenced to 21 months in prison after admitting conspiracy to steal.

The recovering drug addict and alcoholic, who has 30 previous convictions, including 26 for shop lifting, was also caught stealing in a shop in the West End on CCTV on a a previous occasion.

The court heard Grant, who has nine-year-old twin boys, was heard saying she felt like spitting in the shop assistant's face.

Camille Gay, 30, of High Trees, south west London, who has seven previous convictions, mostly theft-related, was sentenced to 16 months for conspiracy to steal and another four months for breaching two suspended sentences she was serving.

Gay, now a mother of five, was six-months pregnant when she was arrested.

She ran from officers, dropping a bag of clothes worth more than £450.

Nadine Wright, 31, of Archers Drive, Enfield, who has 14 previous convictions, was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and a supervision order of 12 months after admitting handling stolen goods.

She has already served 183 days on remand.

Jacqueline Thompson, 28, of Edward Avenue, east London, will be sentenced on Monday for handling stolen goods.

Ola Ilesanmi, 39, of Trinity Rise, south west London, will also be sentenced at a later date for conspiracy to steal.

The court heard after her arrest over 100 items of clothing with an estimated price tag of more than £10,000 were discovered at her home.

A further member of the gang, Angela Johnson, 52, of Streatham High Road, south London, who is charged with conspiracy to steal, failed to appear in court.

Ms Fudge said she was arrested after officers saw her "struggling with the weight of the bags" she was carrying, which were full of stolen clothing.

The bags contained 31 pairs of trousers, four tops, three pairs of shoes and two pairs of sandals, with a value of more than £700.

All of the women are from Jamaica except Ilesanmi, who is British.