A WOMAN'S home was laid out like a shop, selling stolen clothes and toiletries at half price, a court has heard.

Christine Duckworth, 54, even ran a stolen-to-order service for customers if she did not have what they wanted, said Shaun Dodds, prosecuting, at Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

When police raided her home, in Gudmunsen Avenue, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, they found clothes on racks in her lounge, with toiletries laid out on the floor.

The clothes still bore the price tags of the shops from where they had been stolen, but they were marked down to half price, the court heard.

Mr Dodds said that 395 items - valued at £3,710 - were seized by police.

He said Duckworth said she knew they were stolen and that she had been buying them for four months from a man who provided three deliveries a week.

Her alleged supplier is now in custody facing more serious charges.

Anthony Braithwaite, defending, said it started when Duckworth began buying cheap clothes for a young relative.

He said that her disabled husband was also dependent on her and that she had lived a blameless life until last year.

Duckworth was given a nine-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after she pleaded guilty to handling stolen goods between February and June last year.

She asked for 12 similar offences to be considered. She was also ordered to pay £500 towards prosecution costs.

The judge, Mr Recorder Martin Bethel, told her: "This was helping in the theft of property from shops, for example, Woolworths and Asda, who have an enormous problem with shoplifting.

"The result is that they have to fix their prices to cover the losses from shoplifting and the expenses of security guards.

"The sort of behaviour that you were involved in has an effect on you and your friends and relatives because, inevitably, prices have to rise.