A MUM who went out shoplifting just weeks after being put on a suspended sentence for burglary has branded prison 'a blessing'.

Kerry Duggan asked a judge to jail her after she slipped back into her old ways of taking drugs and stealing having been given the chance.

Just weeks after being released from prison in March, where she had been held on remand, the 29-year-old again went out shoplifting.

After being caught stealing twice within a few days she was remanded back into custody and now she has asked a judge to let her stay there.

Lee Mott, defending, told Swindon Crown Court: "I am struggling to remember a time when, sat in the cells, someone indicated to me that prison was a blessing.

"No one wants to go to custody, Miss Duggan doesn't particularly enjoy it, but she is using it productively.

"On leaving custody on the last occasion she was seeking with social services to make arrangements to see her daughter, she hoped for contact at a child contact centre.

"What followed was a lengthy break which led to a situation all too familiar to her.

"She started having a drink and once she started taking a drink she started taking drugs again. Then she fell in to the wrong company and that is how the offences came about."

He said she was now on heroin replacement drug methadone and hoped to be able to reduce it and take up help from the Nelson Trust when she is released.

During her recent period in custody he said she had also found out she had HIV and also 'abnormal cells' in her abdomen which are being investigated.

Duggan, of Beaulieu Close, Toothill, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft.

Earlier Colin Meeke, prosecuting, said she was put on an eight month jail term suspended for two years on Friday March 11.

Four weeks later she was caught stealing perfume from Boots in Chippenham then a few days later taking DIY goods from Homebase in Greenbridge.

He said that she has 16 previous convictions, which are almost all for shoplifting, before the burglary matter.

In that incident she and a female friend forced their way into the home of a woman her co-defendant had fallen out with.

As the other woman lashed out with a knife stabbing two women, one of whom went on to have a heart attack, Duggan took the chance to take a laptop and leave with it.

Jailing her for eight months Recorder Stephen Hall said: "You know what is going to happen: unusually I am invited without any resistance from your counsel, with instructions from you, to activate the suspended sentence.

"There is a ray of hope and that is in the form of the Nelson Fund. But it is not up to anybody else, being inside is not a pretty place.

"Though I am told you want to get clean of drugs you are going to have to work very hard to be clean of drugs inside.

"I take the unusual course of wishing you well and I do hope you have the strength to get off drugs and go straight."