Shoplifter with expensive taste jailed after stealing more than £8,000 worth of clothes from shop in Merry Hill Shopping Centre store
A shoplifter who stuffed £8,503 worth of clothes from a Merry Hill Shopping Centre store into a 'magic bag' and ran off without paying has been jailed.
James Dunne, 50, of St Margaret's Road, Birmingham, entered Flannels, Merry Hill on May 8, this year, with another man and headed to the menswear section.
He picked out expensive t-shirts, jackets and shorts and headed for the exit without being apprehended and made a clean getaway from the Brierley Hill shopping centre.
When shown CCTV of the incident a local bobby identified Dunne as the culprit and he was put on the wanted list.
In June, equipped with a bag with a foil lining, so called a magic bag because alarm tags do not activate when inside, he went to House of Fraser, Corporation Street, Birmingham.
Security staff apprehended him and police arrested him at the store. He was wanted for the Merry Hill Shopping Centre theft and for a similar incident at Harvey Nichols, The Mailbox, when he left the store with a £1,250 Belstaff green suede jacket without paying.
