A COLLEGE student and a lecturer set up a supermarket checkout swindle which allowed the teacher to walk away with a £40 bottle of malt whisky.

Blackburn magistrates heard that while the student had been arrested and charged, police were still looking to speak to the lecturer who was not named in court.

Owen Joseph Stafford, 19, formerly of Abbotsclough Avenue, Knuzden, but now living and working at Clawthorpe Hall, Burton in Kendal, Carnforth, Cumbria, pleaded guilty to stealing a bottle of Glenmorangie malt whisky from Tesco and theft of £400 from Tesco between December of last year and June of this year.

The magistrates adjourned the case until September 29 for the preparation of pre-sentence reports.

Phillip Potter, prosecuting, said Stafford was employed as a cashier at Tesco's Hill Street store in Blackburn and was being kept under observation by the security manager.

A customer was seen to submit several items for payment and among them was a bottle of Glenmorangie.

"The defendant put that item through the till but then immediately voided it, thereby deleting it from the record," said Mr Potter.

He said Stafford was observed voiding other items during the course of the evening and was eventually seen to take a £20 note from the till, crumple it up and place it in his pocket. He was approached by the security officer and threw the note on the floor. "He later fully admitted the matters which had been caught on CCTV and said it had been going on for six months," said Mr Potter. "He estimated he had stolen about £400 during that period.

"An aggravating feature of these offences is that it was not a coincidence that an individual had left the shop with a £40 bottle of whisky," said Mr Potter.

"That person was a college lecturer who taught this defendant and it had been pre-arranged that this would happen.

"The other person is still outstanding although the police are aware of his identity."

Debbie Jameson, defending, said it was Stafford's first conviction and he had been relieved to be caught and able to make a clean breast of things to the police.

She said Stafford had left the college in June, having been on a catering course, and had got a job in Burton in Kendal.

"He wants to keep away from Blackburn and make a fresh start for himself," she added.

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