Louth and Mablethorpe thefts lead to couple appearing in court

Christine Laura Morper, 29, and Peter Philip Minkley, 31, of different addresses in Hadleigh Road, Immingham, admitted offences of shoplifting and one of handling stolen property.

In addition, Morper admitted allowing her premises at Caistor Drive, Grimsby, where she lived at the time, to be used for the production of cannabis and to possessing an offensive weapon.

Mark Salt, prosecuting, said Morper and Minkley went into the Co­op store in Mablethorpe on November 21 and stole a television and groceries, together worth £208.

On the same day, they went to Boyes on Mercer Row, Louth and stole toiletries and clothes worth £56.

The following day, Minkley went to Yorkshire Trading in Louth’s Market Place and stole a sleigh, reindeer and musical lantern worth £105.

Mr Salt said a burglary took place at the Sue Ryder charity shop in Eastgate, Louth at 10pm on November 9 in which £1,000 worth of goods were stolen.

Police went to Morper’s then address at Caistor Drive in Grimsby where items from the burglary were recovered.

Mr Salt told the court Minkley and Morper admitted handling the stolen property but denied any involvement in the actual burglary.

He said police searched an outbuilding at the house and discovered a ‘sophisticated growth’ of cannabis.

He said Morper tol d police she did not have a key to the outbuilding and had taken no part in thecultivation of the drug and gave the name of the man who had grown it there to officers.

He added than when she was arrested, she had a knuckleduster in her handbag which she said she had left in by mistake.

Mitigating for Minkley, Asad Aziz said that although he had been out of trouble for three years, he had 26 convictions and he assumed the magistrates would require a report before sentencing.

Lauren Fisher, for Morper, said she was of ‘statutory good character’.

Magistrates ordered a report from the Probation Service and adjourned for sentencing on March 22 and granted both conditional bail until then.

*In a separate hearing, Morper’s mother, Mrs Gwendaline Morper, 53, of St Margaret’s Close,Laceby, denied two allegations of handling stolen property from the Sue Ryder shop burglary and the Mablethorpe Co­op theft, at Caistor Drive, Grimsby.

Her cases were adjourned for trial on March 18.