Shoplifter caught on Street View as she flees store

Tammy McIvor stole £60 worth of washing up goods from a Savers store in Middlesbrough.

A shoplifter was caught and then prosecuted for stealing £60 ($104) of washing-up goods after she was photographed fleeing a store on Google Street View.

Tammy McIvor, from Middlesbrough, can be seen running from discount store Savers in the town with a member of staff chasing her.

Images of the robbery were stumbled across by an IT worker who saw McIvor sprinting out of the North Yorkshire shop while looking through the town online on the app.

She was pictured by the camera which had been taking shots in the street, exiting from the store with her stolen goods in a Sports Direct carrier bag.

Store bosses were able to identify the 30-year-old from the Google Street View stills.

Although, as per Google policy, her face was blurred they were able to identify her from her distinctive white top she was wearing.

She wore the same outfit when she was arrested.

'I'm an ex-Teesside University student so I thought I would see my old stomping ground, and as soon as I spotted it I thought 'that seemed a bit strange,' said Peter Darby, an IT worker who came across the images.

'I moved further down the street and you could see a bloke pursuing her. By the end she was going full speed.

'You could tell as soon as you looked at the pictures that something was up as she came out of there very angrily.

'She was running around with the Sports Direct bag and it was obvious she was up to no good.'

The images were filmed on June 19 in the town center at around 2.45pm.

She pleaded guilty to theft at Teeside magistrates court last week and was given a year-long community order, which has a drug rehabilitation requirement.

The court heard McIvor has a long history of offending and drug abuse including a stint in prison in 2013 for burgling two properties in one night.

The women, who has been a heroin addict since 16, also took drugs in prison and used someone else's name to get out of trouble.

After the case, a friend of McIvor, said: 'She's harmless but she gets into trouble for shoplifting quite a bit.

'A lot of the shops in Middlesbrough and Stockton already know her and look out for her, but she's never been caught like this before. '

Google's camera equipped cars aim to build reliable maps by taking 360 degree images of cities, towns and villages across the world.

It is company policy to blur out anyone's face the camera's may photograph.