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Judge Timothy Nash has sentenced a Folkestone pickpocket to 14 months in jail for stealing a frail 82-year-old woman's purse, containing £10 cash as she shopped at a Dover supermarket in January.

Canterbury Crown Court court had heard Ann Gilheaney, 46, committed a theft two years ago and got away with an £80 fine despite a string of more than 30 previous thefts.

The Judge attacked what he called the "namby-pamby, politically correct approach", saying it was designed to free police from paper work and branded Government policy to give thieves on-the-spot fixed penalties as "stupidity in practice".

"The issue of a penalty notice ticket for the criminal offence of shoplifting is controversial as a device... is stupidity in practice," Judge Nash said on 4 October.

"It means, not infrequently, that people don't have their difficulties addressed by a court, which is better able to deal with shoplifters.

"One day we will all wake up to the namby-pamby politically correct approach that for economic reasons seems to be adopted to save the police paperwork."

Dubbing her a professional thief, he said: "The time has come for me, on behalf of the community, to say: 'We have had enough.' You must be punished."

Yesterday, prosecutor James Bilsland told the court Gilheaney, from Folkestone, had been caught after CCTV footage showed the purse being taken from her victim's shopping trolley.