A WOMAN who shoplifted to pay off her drug debts told magistrates in Swindon she had been fighting a heroin addiction but was straightening her life out.

Rae Macdonald, 29, of Kingswood Chase, Trowbridge pleaded guilty to shoplifting from Whitehall Garden Centre at Lacock last September when she appeared in Swindon Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Keith Ballinger, prosecuting, told the court that Macdonald had been seen on CCTV footage putting a pair of shoes valued at £50 into a carrier bag, then selecting a vacuum cleaner valued at £100 before leaving with no attempt to pay.

She was later identified through the vehicle she drove away from the garden centre.

When interviewed by police in February she said she was in a bad place and trying to overcome an addiction and pay off her drug debts.

Representing herself, Macdonald told the magistrates that she had been homeless at the time of the offence but now had her own flat, was on a methadone prescription and in receipt of benefit and her life was going in the right direction.

The magistrates made a stand-alone compensation order of £150 to Whitehall Garden Centre and congratulated Macdonald on her good progress.