A dog food thief behind a shoplifting spree has been sent to prison.
Karl Hanifin stole from stores across Ollerton on 11 occasions over a six-week period.
The 41-year-old targeted four shops, most of them numerous times, between 10 August and 23 September.
Each theft saw Hanifin walk in, take whatever he could get his hands on and then leave.
Dog food and dog treats were the most popular targets of his thieving, with headphones, coffee and chocolates being other products he stole more than once.
Having visited all four Ollerton shops and reviewed the available footage, officers from the Sherwood neighbourhood policing team were able to identify Hanifin as the culprit.
Neighbourhood officers ultimately managed to catch up with the shoplifter on Friday (25 September) – two days after his final offence – and place him under arrest.
Hanifin, of Sycamore Road, Ollerton, was then made to attend Nottingham Magistrates’ Court the next day, having been charged with 11 counts of shop theft.
Guilty pleas across the board then followed, as did a 12-week custodial sentence. Hanifin was also ordered to pay £1,290 in compensation.
Sergeant Christian Hurley, of Nottinghamshire Police, said:
“Our neighbourhood officers did a great job of correctly attributing this shoplifting series to Hanifin and then catching him.
“That was made possible thanks to the local knowledge of our officers, with their previous dealings with Hanifin making it possible for them to quickly identify him from the available in-store CCTV.
“Shoplifting is a blight on communities, while it can also be very dispiriting for staff working in the stores targeted, so we were pleased to see the seriousness of Hanifin’s offending reflected in a spell behind bars.”
