Shoplifter jailed for stealing toys to give as Christmas presents
A Shropshire shoplifter who claimed he stole action figures to give to his children as late Christmas presents has been sentenced to eight weeks in prison.
Robert Ligus, 34, had only recently been released from prison when he carried out two shoplifting offences in Shrewsbury and was later recalled to finish serving a four-month sentence.
Ligus admitted stealing four action figures from Infinity & Beyond in Shrewsbury, taking £130 from the shop till on January 3, and a separate theft of four baby outfits from JoJo Maman Bebe in the town on December 31.
Prosecuting, Mrs Kate Price, said Ligus, of Cunnery Road, Church Stretton, was spotted kneeling behind the till of the comic and toy shop and was challenged by a witness there.
Mrs Price told Shrewsbury Magistrates Court on Monday that while Ligus was held in the shop as the police were called, he said: "I didn't mean it, let me go and I won't come back."
The court was told Ligus had only been released from prison on December 18, but his solicitor, Mr Chris Grainger, said he had not been discharged normally from prison and had immediately run into financial problems as he sought to get benefits.
He said Ligus had entered the shop to find items for his children as late Christmas gifts and had made an opportunistic grab for money in the till while he was there.
Magistrates sentenced him to a further eight weeks in prison to run concurrently with his other sentence. Last month Shrewsbury Crown Court was told that Ligus has appeared before the courts 39 times for 78 offences.
His father, Robin Stanislaw Ligus, murdered 75-year-old Robert Young in Shrewsbury in 1994. While in prison he confessed to committing two other killings in the same year and, in 2011, a Birmingham Crown Court jury found him responsible for the murders of Trevor Bradley, 53, from Ludlow, and Brian Coles, 57, from Whitchurch.
Ligus senior, 62, is now detained indefinitely in a secure mental hospital.
