THIEVES who targeted Harrogate's shops using a baby buggy as cover came unstuck thanks to the alertness of store staff monitoring CCTV cameras, the town's magistrates heard.

Paul Watson, 23, of Barkston Grove, Chapelfields, York, had travelled to Harrogate with another man and a woman - who was wheeling the buggy with two foil lined bags attached to it - solely with the intention of shoplifting, said prosecutor Stephen White.

But in the first shop they went into, Woolworths, in Cambridge Street, their suspicious nature attracted the attention of CCTV operators who used the cameras to track the trio's activities.

They also sent for the police who stopped the three as they left.

Watson pleaded guilty to going equipped for theft by using shopping bags lined with foil as a means of beating store tagging systems and to obstructing Sgt Robert Moore by giving a false name, address and date of birth.

He was conditionally discharged for a year and ordered to pay £50 costs after his solicitor, Martin Hawes, told the court that earlier in the month, after admitting burglary, he had been made subject to a two-year drug treatment and testing order by York magistrates and this was working well.

Mr Hawes said Watson, who went along for the ride on the shoplifting expedition, but would have stolen had the opportunity arisen, had had a short but very busy criminal career.

"Because of this he knew that if he gave his true identity there was little chance of his being bailed."

Now, through the drugs order, he was no longer using heroin and was hopeful that this would stop him offending.

Updated: 10:49 Friday, August 01, 2003