AN ADDICT who was so desperate for a fix she was “clucking,” was caught when she tried to sell a stolen camera at Cash Converters.

The camera that mother-of-two Sophie Quinn, 25, passed over the counter was part of a haul from a break in at a second-hand shop, Swindon magistrates heard.

Pauline Lambert, prosecuting, said the victim locked up his shop Vito and Sons on January 24 but returned the following morning and opened the shutters to find he had been burgled.

Lots of equipment had been stolen, including a canon EOS Rebel camera valued at £400.

He contacted local secondhand stores and was told by Cash Converters in Commercial Road that someone had been in and tried to sell the camera.

Police visited the store, viewed the CCTV footage and Quinn was identified. She was arrested and interviewed.

“She says she was walking through town and one of the drug users she knows offered her £20 to sell it.”

Quinn, who is also an addict told officers she did it because she needed a hit. “She says she is clucking,” said the prosecutor.

However Cash Converters staff took the camera and asked her for proof of her identity. They then kept the camera.

Ms Lambert said Quinn had a previous conviction for shop theft in 2007 and her last conviction was last year for being drunk and disorderly, when she was given a 12-month conditional discharge.

“She is not known for this sort of offending by the looks of it,” added the prosecutor.

At the hearing on February 21. Quinn, of Poplar Avenue, Pinehurst, admitted handling stolen goods and breaching her conditional discharge.

The court heard from probation that she had been sentenced to a community order in April last year and although she had breached it twice she had done the six months of alcohol treatment required.

But she had immediately replaced the booze with drugs, including crack cocaine and was getting close to hitting rock bottom.

She had two young children who were in the care of her father and she was only allows some contact with them. She had also just come out of an abusive relationship.

Quinn did not like the life she was living or the treatment she had given her parents, but her mother had taken her in and was supporting her. She had also accepted that she had to change or she will not see her children again.

Her solicitor Emma Handslip agreed with the recommendation of a curfew. “She actually welcomes being at home because she knows it takes away the worry from her mother.”

The bench told Quinn she would be on a community order for the next 18 months and a 7pm to 7am curfew for six weeks.

Her conditional discharge was cancelled and an 0065tra two weeks were added to her curfew.

“Thank you for giving me another chance,” she said as she left the dock.