Since she was 16, she has been a thief and she was recently convicted by Canterbury magistrates of stealing £117-worth of underwear from TK Maxx. She did not need new underwear. She stole it to sell it to buy heroin.

I suppose she takes heroin every day and steals every day to fund her habit. She is not always caught. In fact she has only been convicted 175 times, about once a month for the past 15 years.

Ms Jones is an expensive lady. Her living expenses are met by the state, to which I assume she contributes nothing, and it has so far cost us £700,000 to process all her convictions.

If she has stolen £117-worth of goods every day to fund her habit, that will have cost the shops more than £640,000 which they will have added to the prices we pay.

I would also guess Ms Jones is an isolated, miserable soul. She probably does not have family or friends worth the name or they would have found a way to get her off drugs and, equally clearly, the state takes no interest in her.

The other day, Canterbury magistrates could, I'm sure, have put her somewhere there would be no heroin, but there would be doctors and psychologists to help her, but they did not bother. They let her go home. The woman has put herself in the dock every month for 15 years but the Canterbury beaks appear to be too callous and cold-hearted to take her in hand. My heart goes out to her.

My anger is reserved for the magistrate, a Mr Neil Hubbard. He sent poor Joanne home to her cold needle and he sent a clear message to the young people of Canterbury. He effectively told them: "If your parents do not love you enough to keep you in line, I am not going to help you. You can come to my court as often as you like, but I cannot be bothered to give you the discipline you so need and crave."

And the wretched Mr Hubbard also sent a message to Canterbury shopkeepers. "Do not think, for a minute", he might have said, "that I am going to protect your property or stop people stealing from you. You can spend as much time as you like catching thieves and making statements to the police and standing in front of me to give evidence, but the last thing in the world I am going to do is to stop them stealing from you."

And Mr Hubbard appears to have stuck two fingers up to you and me, the ordinary tax payers of England.

"I may not be doing anything useful here", he could have admitted, "but I'm at least making sure that it costs you a fortune".

I wonder if our magistrates are any better?