Addict targeted garage nine times, stole £6,000 worth of vapes and told staff 'I do what I like'
A Shrewsbury crack addict who walked into a garage ten times and emptied the forecourt shop of vapes worth more than £6,000 has been jailed.
Macauley Smout, 26, of no fixed abode, was given a suspended prison sentence just four days before his recent crime spree began in July this year, Shrewsbury Crown Court heard on Tuesday.
Smout was also under a criminal behaviour order at the time of the offences, banning him from refusing to leave a premises or area when asked to do so by a person who has authority.
Prosecuting Smout, Ms Kirsty Allman told the court that the defendant had previous convictions for 16 offences for shop theft when he began targeting the Esso garage in Harlescott Lane, Shrewsbury.
"The offences occurred on nine different days between July 8 and September 18 this year," she said.
She told the court that Smout had pleaded guilty to ten counts of shop theft, an assault on the manager of the Esso store in Shrewsbury, along with four breaches of a criminal behaviour order. He also admitted the theft of an electric scooter that he stole from a woman in Shrewsbury after she left it outside a supermarket in the town in July.
But she said the first theft of vapes at the ESSO store in Harlescott, where most of his crimes occurred, took place on August 15, when Smout was in the company of another male, and the pair had "filled back bags with vapes".
