A woman who stole items worth hundreds of pounds has been spared jail after magistrates heard she had been coerced into it. 

Vanessa Ponsford, 49, helped her co-defendant Daniel Haslam hide groceries in his wheelchair during a shoplifting spree at the Co-Op in Brundall.  

She also wheeled a shopping trolley loaded with alcohol worth £445 out of the Asda supermarket in Hellesdon. 

Sarah Fiddy, prosecuting at Norwich Magistrates’ Court, said on that occasion security staff had attempted to confront her but that she had fled in a car with two accomplices.  

She was eventually arrested after she was recognised from CCTV stills by a probation officer overseeing a community order imposed after previous thefts.  

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Ponsford, of Sallows Close in Horsford, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft on December 16 and January 8.

Annette Hall, mitigating, said she had been stealing on the orders of Haslam to fund his crack habit. 

Magistrates sentenced her to an 18 month conditional discharge telling her “we do believe you were coerced into these offences”.

The case against Haslam was adjourned until November 21.