A BARNTON woman exposed herself to members of the public, including children, after stealing a crate of lager from a supermarket.

Rachel Anne Marie Phillips, 38, of Lydyett Lane, pleaded guilty to two charges, including using threatening words and behaviour likely to cause distress as well as the theft of a 10 pack of Fosters from the Co-op store on the same road where she lives.

Alan Currums, prosecuting at Chester Magistrates Court, said how police had been called to a disturbance outside the Co-op in Barnton shortly after 7pm on Sunday, July 19 this year. Witnesses reported seeing a woman being loud and aggressive to a group of around 15 people, the vast majority of which were said to be teenagers.

Mr Currums said: "When a witness challenged her behaviour, Phillips mumbled something back that was undecipherable.

"She was acting erratically and attempted to attack the partner of another witness who was on the phone reporting the matter to the police.

"Her behaviour became even more strange when she lifted her top and exposed her breasts before pulling down her pants down doing the same thing with her bottom.

"The incident was particularly worrying and distressing due to the fact she did this in front of several children."

By the time police arrived at the scene, Phillips had already left, and officers spoke to staff at the Co-op who confirmed she had been in the store and observed on CCTV taking a crate of Fosters lager from a shelf and leaving without paying.

Mr Currums added: "She had been seen on CCTV picking up one crate of lager, which she then dropped to the floor, before picking up another and leaving the store without making any attempt to pay for the item."

Police soon located Phillips, who has several previous convictions, but none for theft, in a location nearby, with the opened crate, which had six of the ten cans remaining in it.

The Probation Service confirmed Phillips had been subject to an order at the time of the offence, the terms of which had been extended for an additional six months on July 24. She had been been out of contact with them at the time of the incident and had completed 65 hours of 100 hours unpaid work, which had been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Phillips, who had fallen into alcohol misuse, was now motivated to re-engage with Probation and admitted to have emotional issues.

Richard Sibeon, defending, said his client was a vulnerable woman with quite complex issues who had a fairly unusual record in that she had not been in any trouble between for six years until 2018, when she was given a conditional discharge for assaulting a police officer.

He said: "She's clearly had a wobble here, but it is now back on board with probation.

"She is married with children and she helps her husband, who runs his own delivery business, but she has her demons and has been diagnosed as bipolar.

"Over the period of lockdown, she experienced the grief and trauma of losing a grandparent to covid and another family member to cancer."

Mr Sibeon said Phillips' behaviour was "strange and upsetting" and was a result of her mixing alcohol with the medication she takes for her mental health issues.

He went on: "The Co-op is her local shop.

"She doesn't know why she stole the lager.

"It's not like she's your typical alcoholic who was acting out of desperation trying to feed her habit.

"It was out of character as she was perfectly capable of paying for it."

Mr Sibeon said his client had been frustrated about her unpaid work being put on hold due to covid, a situation which was obviously beyond her or anybody else's control.

Having considered the matter, Magistrates told Phillips it had been "a deeply unpleasant incident" which had quite rightly caused distress to several members of the public.

As well as issuing her with a £50 fine, Phillips must serve a new community order for a period of 12 months as well as pay £85 in costs, a £95 surcharge and compensation to the Co-op of £9.75.