A MOTHER with a heroin habit who stole meat and chocolates from a Co-Op has been jailed for six months.

'When at 35 you are taking the clothes off the backs of your kids, it is a sad state,' defending solicitor Erwin Bam-forth told the bench when representing Donna Marie Parkinson, of Newhall Road, Upton, at Chester Magistrates Court on Monday.

Parkinson admitted two charges of theft from the Co-Op in Walker Street, in Hoole, yielding a total of seven joints of meat and several boxes of chocolate totalling £95.

She also pleaded guilty to breaching a drug treatment and testing order (DTTO) after failing to keep to several appointments.

Prosecuting, Lawrence Bestow told the court how on October 11 the shop's assistant manager saw Parkinson taking the goods, putting them in the bag and leaving.

Mr Bestow said two days later Parkinson was again spotted by a member of staff who informed the manager and she was asked to leave.

On examining CCTV footage, Parkinson was seen taking boxes of chocolate.

She was arrested on December 6.

Mr Bestow applied for £20 costs. Defending, Erwin Bamforth said: 'She will be 35 at the end of this month. She has moderated her use of heroin.'

He told the court Parkinson had been using it since the age of 16 and asked District Judge David Gosling to let her 'go cold turkey'.

Mr Gosling told Parkinson: 'You have an absolutely appalling record of dis-honesty.'

Parkinson will serve a total of six months for the incidents amounting to the DTTO breach and for the two theft charges.

Mr Gosling revoked the DTTO and made no award for costs or compensation. District Judge David Gosling was un-happy the probation service referred to Parkinson's record as nuisance behaviour. He said the store did not see having several boxes of chocolates stolen from under their noses as merely a nuisance.

He warned probation to choose their words more carefully and asked for his observations to be recorded and passed on to the author of the report.