'Career' Napier shoplifter sent to prison for a range of new convictions

Steven Nielsen keeps stealing from supermarkets despite being issued with trespass notices. Photo / NZME

A prolific shoplifter described by a judge as a danger to retailers has been jailed for 10 months on a raft of new charges.

Steven Robert Nielsen was sentenced in the Napier District Court on Tuesday on eight charges each of trespassing and shoplifting and two of breaching his release conditions after being freed from prison last time.

Judge Geoff Rea said Nielsen had been trespassed from various supermarkets but continued to steal from them.

"You have almost made that a career," the judge said.

The amounts Nielsen stole were not large – reparation of $827 was ordered – but Judge Rea said it was not so much a question of what he took but the fact that he persisted in doing it.

"You keep on offending and offending," he said. "You are a danger to local retailers and have been for quite some time."

A probation officer's report expressed "very little faith" that Nielsen would change.

Defence counsel Will Hawkins said Nielsen had been fending for himself since a "catastrophic breakdown" in his family when he was 14. He had lived at 40 different addresses and been in and out of prison since.

Nielsen accepted prison was the "inevitable outcome", Hawkins said.

Judge Rea jailed Nielsen for 10 months, with conditions on release to not drink alcohol or take illicit drugs, and to undergo assessments for counselling and alcohol and drug treatment.

The court was told that Nielsen had been in custody since March 10, which will count towards his sentence, meaning he can expect to be released in August.