Granny takes toddler shoplifting

File photo / NZ Herald

A woman who took her young granddaughter on a shoplifting spree has been sentenced to community service.

Tracey Ann Johnston, 49, of Cobden on the West Coast, admitted stealing a pair of shoes, a watch, two T-shirts and a toddler's dress with a total value of $105 from The Warehouse on February 8.

Greymouth District Court was told that video footage showed Johnston and the toddler entering the store, picking up items and heading into a dressing room.

Johnston emerged at one stage, picked a wristwatch off a stand and returned to the booth.

When they left the store the toddler was wearing a new white dress (she had been dressed in pink when she arrived) and Johnston was wearing a new pair of shoes and concealing the T-shirts and the watch.

Defence lawyer George Linder said Johnston was on medication at the time and had no memory of the offending.

Judge Emma Smith said Johnston had got supervision for a previous theft and the options this time were either community work or jail.

"She's not going to get away with it, we are not going down the sentencing scale," the judge said, sentencing Johnston to 75 hours' community work and ordering her to pay $105 reparation.

"The fact that you used a child ... made her complicit in the act, is absolutely appalling," the judge said.