Wellington woman caught stealing chocolate bars found guilty

According to police facts, Leslie Coleman of Marsh Street Wellington, attended Woolworths in Cabramatta where she stole a handful of chocolate bars amounting to $18.85 on June 30.

Ms Coleman entered the store once before leaving, however returned shortly with an unknown woman and wandered the isles.

According to the facts Ms Coleman removed five chocolate bars and placed them in a blue bag, which she then placed within another bag to conceal them.

Ms Coleman then proceeded to the self serve checkout where she purchased two bottles of soft drink. The facts state she made no attempt to remove or pay for the chocolates.

Woolworths staff stopped Ms Coleman and searched her bags, she claimed to have purchased the chocolates elsewhere but did not have a receipt.

Police outside the store approached Ms Coleman, who, according to the facts, had a history of shoplifting and was currently on bail.

Officers searched her bag and located three Cadbury chocolate bars, one Darrell Lea packet of chocolate bullets and a Toblerone chocolate bar amounting to $18.85.

The items were returned to Woolworths.

Body-worn camera footage by police reveals Ms Coleman made a full and frank admission to taking the chocolates and having no intention to pay for them stating "yeah I took them, I was hungry".

The court heard Ms Coleman was also charged with two more counts of larceny one including groceries amounting over $1000 and property amounting to $59.95 on separate occasions.

In Dubbo Local Court on Wednesday she pleaded guilty to two counts of larceny and one count of shoplifting.

Magistrate Theresa Hamilton said while the amount involved in the matters were relatively low, it "shows a pattern of conduct" considering she had two previous charges of stealing and larceny in February 2019.

"The defendant has been previously dealt with by way of fines for similar offences quite close to these in February 2019, so I think specific deterrence is an issue," Magistrate Hamilton said.

Ms Coleman was given a community corrections order for 15-months for stealing groceries over the value of $1000 and two 12-month community corrections orders for the other two matters, both under supervision.