‘I had no money to put in the meter so I went out and nicked a few belts’

shoplifter caught stealing belts from H&M was spared jail after claiming he needed to cash to top up his electricity meter. Outreach worker Andrew Reid, 47, took five belts from the store in Cheapside in the City of London, on 24 August. When confronted by police, Reid admitted he ‘messed up’ but needed money to pay for his electricity. The father-of-one has a ‘long history’ of shoplifting, but had been otherwise turning his life around before the theft, Westminster Magistrates’…