Two shoplifters walked straight into trouble when they went to an address with items stolen during their campaign against city centre convenience stores, York magistrates heard.

Police were already there dealing with an incident and in their carrier bags found the detergent worth £52.71 they had just taken from Morrisons branch in Spurriergate, said Sam Law, prosecuting.

Jack Richard Hudson, 19, and Bradley Lynn, 20, had also stolen £7.35 worth of detergent from Tesco's Piccadilly store ten days earlier on November 19, and cheese from Sainsbury's Micklegate store on November 18.

Both were on community orders at the time.

Both men, of Walmgate, York, pleaded guilty to three charges of shop theft and Hudson asked for a shop theft on November 4 from the Tesco branch to be taken into consideration. Hudson, who has a lengthy record, was jailed for 13 weeks.

His solicitor Victoria Latham said he was working with agencies to deal with his drug habit.

Lynn, whose record is shorter, wept as his 13-week sentence was suspended for 12 months on condition he did nine months of drug rehabilitation.

His solicitor Mark Thompson said he had only been offending for 12 months. He had been homeless for a time and had mental health problems and he wanted some kind of retribution hanging over him such as a suspended sentence to encourage him to stop committing crimes.