The Judge justified the sentence by outlining the Sentencing Act and guidelines.
Stefka Gishanova targeted vulnerable people (Image: -)
A “professional” pickpocket has been spared jail because of legal changes. Stefka Gishanova, 55, originally from Bulgaria, targeted elderly people on buses, on one occassion stealing £1,900 from a pensioner who had taken out the cash to spend on Christmas presents for their family. She also took mobile phones and bus pases. Gishanova, from Edmonton, north London, was detained at Stansted Airport while trying to board a Ryanair flight to Cologne.
Judge John Lodge told her during a sentencing at Harrow Crown Court: “You are a professional thief. Your occupation is as a pickpocket. You target the vulnerable.” But he added that Labour’s Sentencing Act means that her 12-month custodial sentence would be suspended, such is the case for all prison terms of this length. The same legislation means police officer PC Andrew Harper’s killers are set to walk free from jail early. The Government is trying to work out how they could be kept inside.
Judge Lodge also said that the Sentencing Guidelines meant he also need to cut a potential two-year-sentence for six thefts and attempted thefts to a just one year.
Six months were scrapped because Gishanova suffers from ill-health and has no previous convictions.
She also pleaded guilty, meaning another six months were taken off, The Daily Mail reported.
If Gishanova had pleaded not guilty, forcing a trial and questioning of her elderly victims by counsel, her sentence “would have been considerably higher” if she were found guilty, Judge Lodge said.
The pensioner who lost £1,900 said in a statement that the crime had changed their life.
She added that she only goes out once a week and never gets on a busy bus.
“The impact on the elderly of losing these sums of money or of losing a mobile phone is huge,” Judge Lodge said.
He added: “I understand you plan to return to Bulgaria.
“I very much hope you do.
“If you do not, and appear before this court in the next two years, you will go straight into custody for 12 months.”