‘Last chance’ for serial shoplifter in Skegness and Boston

Dean Anthony Gibbens, 43, admitted eight thefts from shops in the two towns between July and November last year, when he appeared before magistrates in Boston.

Malcolm McNeil, mitigating, said Gibbens - now no longer homeless and living in South Terrace, Boston - and was also now on a prescription to help him fight his drug addiction.

The magistrates warned him he was ‘in the last chance saloon’.

“Your record is not an enviable one with a lot of thefts from shops,” they told him. You have passed the custody threshold but we are prepared to suspend it.”

Gibbens was given a 12 weeks prison sentence suspended for a year and ordered to undertake six months drug rehabilitation and attend 15 rehabilitation days.

He was also ordered to pay £244 in compensation.