MOTHER-of-five Andrea Poynton was sent to prison for the first time after Blackburn magistrates said they had been left with no alternative.

Poynton pleaded guilty to three offences of shoplifting which solicitor Paul Schofield said had been acts of desperation by a woman looking to feed and clothe her family.

He said her teenage daughter was pregnant and the family was so hard up, Poynton had to cut clothes so they would fit the girl because they could not afford to buy new.

Poynton, 32, of Heatley Close, Blackburn, was also in breach of a 12-week suspended sentence imposed in June for a breach of a community service order which in turn had been imposed for breach of a probation order imposed for shoplifting. The magistrates ordered her to serve the 12-week sentence and another four weeks to run consecutively, for the most recent offences.

Mr Schofield said the family as a unit suffered a chronic shortage of money.

"She had seen her pregnant daughter going round in clothes that did not fit," said Mr Schofield. "She had made great efforts to obtain financial assistance but when that failed she had to cut her daughter's clothes so she could get in them."

He said there was a background of drug abuse and Poynton was on a methadone reduction programme.

"That is the life she leads, a very depressing picture, and it is against that background she has resorted to this," said Mr Schofield. "She has done it to try and help her family."