Thieves Foiled After Forgetting to Fill Up

22 November 2011, 18:40 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Two supermarket thieves from Manchester were caught after forgetting to put petrol in their getaway car.

Rose Devlin, 59, and Denise Egan, 52, stole £400 of alcohol from Asda in Chadderton and were all set to drive off with their haul.

The hapless pair ran out of luck, and fuel, when they could not get their blue Citroen to start and had to push the vehicle to the supermarket's petrol station.

Their clueless antics were captured on CCTV in June and the duo were caught in the act by police four months later when they targeted another Asda store in Hulme in a similar way when one of them distracted a security guard while the other pushed the trolley out of the store.

Devlin, of Moston, and Egan, of Harpurhey, each pleaded guilty at Manchester Magistrates' Court to two counts of theft.

Egan was given a two-year conditional discharge and told to pay £280 compensation and £85 costs.

Devlin will be sentenced next month.