A PROLIFIC shoplifter has been brought back to court after he stole nearly £250 worth of items from a chain store.

Marc Woods admitted that he stole two jumpers worth £243 from a shop in Barrow.

South Cumbria Magistrates' Court heard Woods, 46, took the items from Sports Direct on Christmas Eve.

The defendant, of Dundonald Street, admitted the offence when he faced magistrates.

He is due to be sentenced in a hearing in May.

Woods returned to court after appearing early this year for another theft around the same time.

The court heard that on New Year's Eve he stole £800 worth of coats from a Lakes outdoors shop.

Magistrates were told he took two jackets from Adventure Peaks in Ambleside alongside another man.

The court heard Woods entered the store with a foil-lined bag designed to defeat security alarms.

He took the two items and left for the neighbouring store, only to be confronted by staff from Adventure Peaks who followed him.

His solicitor disputed Woods and the other man had planned the thefts and that 'he went out shopping with a friend and just grabbed some bags out of the car and didn't realise they were foil-lined'.

The thefts of the jackets were described as being carried out 'on impulse'.

Magistrates sentenced Woods, of no fixed abode, to a community order, requiring him to complete six months of drug rehabilitation and stay inside under curfew from 7pm to 7am for three months.

The court was told Woods then had a record of 102 previous offences, the majority of them thefts.

In 2022 Woods was sentenced to 13 months in prison for permitting his flat to be used by a county lines drug gang.

Ringleader Yacine Djalti, from Liverpool, was sentenced to nine and nine months for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

In 2021 Woods appeared in court after he tried to burgle a Barrow bar – only to be foiled by the locked door.

He admitted that he attempted to carry out a burglary at Arribar just after 2am on the day of the incident.