A MOTHER denied stealing £330 worth of perfume from Debenhams in Chester claiming her four-year-old daughter had snuck the bottles into her bag.

But Roxana Popa, 32, was found guilty of theft following a trial at Chester Magistrates Court and on Thursday (November 21) narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence.

Olivia Murray, prosecuting, said the defendant was observed on CCTV pushing her pram over to the fragrance section of the department store on July 29 this year.

“Members of security saw her take a Tom Ford fragrance, take the tag off it, and place the item in a black bag,” Miss Murray said. “She is then seen to be placing other items into the bag.”

Popa, who is a Romanian national, was challenged and offered to pay for the items, saying her daughter must have taken them.

She was then escorted from the store and refused to hand over her details. After being arrested she denied stealing the perfume in her police interview.

“She said it was her daughter who put the items in her bag without her knowledge,” Miss Murray told the court.

It emerged that Popa, of Sussex Road, Chester, has notched up three previous convictions for seven offences since moving to the UK in 2008.

Derek MacDonald, defending, said his client maintained her innocence but accepted the court’s finding after her trial.

A single mother, she had been employed for the “majority of the time” since she moved to this country and had now secured a job working at a coffee shop in Hoole.

She had endured financial difficulties and had lost her job working at Mothercare after the company went bust.

Magistrates warned Popa that she had come “very close” to going straight to prison but agreed to give her a final chance.

She was sentenced to a 12-month community order to include 120 hours of unpaid work and up to 35 days of rehabilitation activity.

She was also told to pay £620 court costs and a £90 victim surcharge, which goes into a national pot to support victims of crime. The perfume, worth £331, was recovered.