A Harrogate woman who chased supermarket staff with a drug needle after they tried to stop her stealing alcohol has been jailed for 19 months.
Prolific shoplifter Julie Ruth Rutherford, 54, became aggressive after staff tried to stop her stealing two bottles of alcohol at the Asda store on Bower Road, York Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Eleanor Guildford said that when staff members confronted Rutherford and asked her what was inside her bag, she hurled abuse at them and poured the contents of the bag onto the floor, which included needles.
Rutherford, who had bedevilled local supermarkets for years, picked up one of the needles and “began to sprint” after the store manager, shouting:
“I’ll give you a needle! I’ll stab you with it.”
Ms Guildford said the store manager, who was named in court, was caused a great deal of distress and anxiety. When he tried to block her path outside the store, Rutherford punched and threatened to stab him.
Ms Guildford said he had recognised Rutherford as she had stolen from the supermarket on “multiple” previous occasions.
As Rutherford tried to escape, she damaged two plant pots, added the prosecuting barrister.
She was arrested five days after the incident which occurred on the afternoon of November 24 and was captured on CCTV.
Rutherford initially denied the offences, claiming she had “no knowledge” of the incident because of her chronic alcohol addiction.
The store manager said the terrifying episode had had a profound impact on his mental health and his sleep, and he often had nightmares about the incident.
41 previous convictions
Rutherford, of Strawberry Dale, was charged with affray, criminal damage and theft. She admitted the offences which were in breach of a 12-month suspended prison sentence imposed in late October for shoplifting.
She had 41 previous convictions for 85 offences, more than half of which were thefts.
Ms Guildford said the shoplifting incident which occasioned the suspended sentence in October occurred in “very similar circumstances” to the incident at Asda four weeks later.
She said Rutherford had a “propensity to commit offences of the same nature” and use the same sort of “tools”, namely needles, to cause people fear of violence.
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Defence barrister Gabrielle Wilkes said Rutherford was “highly embarrassed” about her behaviour and had wanted to be remanded in custody for her own good.
She said Rutherford had endured a traumatic adulthood exacerbated by the death of her sister four years ago and becoming homeless.
She said that Rutherford was a drug addict and alcoholic who was now seeking help for her problems.
Time she ‘learnt a lesson’
Judge Sean Morris told Rutherford:
“I accept you had a tough life, but lots of people have tough lives and they don’t behave like you. It doesn’t give you the right to terrorise people with needles.”
Mr Morris, the Recorder of York, said Rutherford had cost the courts and authorities thousands and thousands of pounds over the years by her inveterate thievery.
He said it was time she “learnt a lesson” and gave her an 18-month jail sentence for the affray, with one month consecutive for breaching the suspended sentence.
Rutherford will serve half of the total 19-month sentence behind bars before being released on prison licence.
