'Disgusting' shoplifter who targeted Next, the Co-op, Lidl, Game and Wilko is jailed after 'frightening' spree of raids and abuse

Prolific thief Martin Nobes, 40, targeted a number of shops during a six-month spree between June 4 and December 9 last year. It resulted in him stealing a total of £3,332.09, while committing 21 offences of shoplifting, Portsmouth Crown Court heard.

The addict, who has been taking heroin for more than 25 years, selected stores in Havant, Waterlooville and Emsworth he felt were ripe for the picking before ‘brazenly’ helping himself to a variety of goods. The shops raided included Next, Co-op, Hobbycraft, Game, Lidl and Wilko.

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Prosecutor Martyn Booth said: ‘He repeatedly targeted certain stores. The defendant would brazenly walk into stores where he was very well known and banned from and would select what he wanted and then walk out in plain view of people in the stores.’

On another occasion, the court heard how Nobes, of Stroudwood Road, Havant, launched into a racist tirade at a security guard outside Iceland in Leigh Park on June 4 after he was caught stealing Marmite and meat. ‘(The guard) followed (Nobes) out of the store and as he went to get on his bike the security guard grabbed the bike to stop the defendant escaping,’ Mr Booth said.

After dropping the goods, Nobes then unleashed a ‘disgusting’ volley of racial slurs towards the worker, resulting in a conviction for racially aggravated behaviour. ‘There were other people there including children who heard the abuse. (The guard) felt embarrassed. (The abuse) was designed to offend him,’ Mr Booth said.

One witness described the racist abuse - delivered at the ‘top of his voice’ - as ‘disgusting and vile’. In one of the comments, Nobes told the victim to ‘go back to his own country’ and warned the man he would ‘slash you up’. Judge Richard Shepherd said there was a ‘fear of serious violence’ taking place.

Nobes also breached two conditional discharges on January 19 and 21 at Boots and Superdrug in Havant. On the first of those occasions, Nobes told a member of staff who had been monitoring him: ‘If I want to nick it, there’s nothing you can do about it.’ Nobes then punched his fist into his palm leaving the woman ‘fearing he would punch her’.

On January 21, he left another female member of staff ‘feeling scared and shaking’, with her telling a customer: ‘What a frightening man.’

Nobes was also convicted of assaulting an emergency worker at Emsworth train station when he spat at the boot of a female officer as he was being restrained on the ground by two male officers.

The court heard Nobes, who started taking heroin when he was 13, has 238 offences to his name with the majority of these being for theft or similar. Howard Barrington-Clark, defending, said Nobes had been ‘trapped’ in a ‘vortex of downward spiral’ by dealers but was now ‘clean’.

But judge Shepherd said he ‘couldn’t find good prospects’ of rehabilitation and jailed Nobes for 86 weeks and issued a criminal behaviour order for three years, banning the defendant from going to the stores he stole from. He called Nobes’ actions ‘brazen’ and said of the racist language: ‘You should be thoroughly ashamed.’

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