Facebook sleuths deliver justice after blatant shoplifting by Corby duo at Uppingham Budgens
Two people from Corby have been sentenced for theft offences thanks to people on Facebook who identified them after the shop staff posted an appeal.
Back in December, exasperated staff at the Budgens store on the Uppingham crossroads posted on Facebook to ask people for help in identifying a pair who walked in and scooped up booze before walking out.
Almost immediately, people in nearby Corby named Eleanor Hunter and Robert Mort – both of whom have long histories of stealing from shops in the area.
Over Christmas, police arrested the pair on suspicion of three shoplifting offences including two from the BP garage in Melton Road, Market Harborough.
They were charged with the theft of a range of items including gammon, steak and meat from Budgens on December 16, as well as multiple kinder biscuits, Christmas gingerbread houses, Christmas sweets gifts and chocolate biscuits worth hundreds from the BP Garage in Harborough on December 14 and 15.
Mort, 39, of Ripley Walk, appeared before magistrates in Leicester on December 31 and admitted the charges. He was given a 14 week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.
Hunter, 36, of Surfleet Close, Corby, appeared at Northampton Magistrates’ Court on December 28 where she also admitted the charges. She was given 16 weeks in prison.
Both have long and chequered histories of shoplifting and other crimes. After a shoplifting spree last year Mort was locked up and a police officer said that Corby was ‘safer’ while he was behind bars.
In 2022 Hunter was banned from the BP Fourways garage after targeting the crime-ridden shop 18 times in a short period. At that time, the garage was Corby’s most-targeted crime spot and was accused of ‘fuelling a crime-wave’. Soon afterwards, following a story in this newspaper, the owners installed permanent security guards and crime dropped to almost zero overnight.