Stourport mum who used fake bank notes in Primark spared jail

Carrie-Anne Bridges, 21, used counterfeit money at a Primark when she got into financial difficulties after her partner was jailed.

She attempted to pay for items at the Worcester branch on November 8 last year using four fake £20 notes she claimed to have borrowed from a family friend.

Bridges, of Nelson Road, Stourport, admitted tendering counterfeit currency but was spared jail on Monday, May 20.

She was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to complete a 40-day rehabilitation activity programme at Worcester Crown Court.

Sentencing, Judge Jim Tindal suspended the sentence on the grounds she was responsible for children and had been honest with the probation officer.

He said: "If you breach that sentence by not cooperating with probation or committing an offence within the next two years you will be back to court and, young children or not, you will be sent to prison.

"There has to be some measure of deterrence which shows to people they can't go around using counterfeit notes."

The court heard Bridges had been committing offences of shoplifting at "some pace" when she was younger.

The judge added: "It was hoped, and I'm sure you hoped, you having a child would have meant you put that behind you and you did for two years."

Blondelle Thompson, prosecuting, said Bridges had convictions for shoplifting dating back to May 2015 when she was a youth.

The court heard the mum-of-three had found herself in financial trouble because her partner was remanded in custody and borrowed the money off a family friend.

Amiee Parkes, defending, said a custodial sentence had to be imposed but asked that it be suspended, saying the defendant had a 12-week-old son with a heart murmur.

She said her client had accepted she knew or reasonably knew or suspected that the notes were counterfeit.

The judge also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the counterfeit money.