A former recruitment manageress from Oldham nicknamed ‘the magpie’ was back behind bars today after she looted up to 250 ladies gym and leisure centre lockers during a decade-long thieving spree.
Mother of three Jeanette Fidler, 41, would steal cash, mobile phones and other valuables from female changing rooms after she posed as a gym member to sneak past staff at privately run leisure clubs.
Over a 12 year period she plundered tens of thousands of pounds worth of items during raids at gyms, health centres, leisure complexes and spas across four counties whilst their owners were in the middle of workouts or beauty treatments.
One victim lost her engagement and wedding ring and other occasions Fidler managed to break into five different lockers in one swoop. Despite being repeatedly arrested and jailed, Fidler would come out of jail and do the same thing again.
She was arrested again last June after a female trainer caught her red handed crouched on her hands and knees outside an open ladies locker.
During her crime spree police mugshots emerged of Fidler looking haggard and drawn due to her years of heavy heroin abuse which contrasted with her healthy look when she was not taking the drug.
In 2012 she was banned by a judge from entering hotels with gyms and swimming pools for four years under the terms of an anti-social behaviour order.
But last September Fidler was caught rifling a ladies handbag for bank cards after sneaking into a changing room at a gym in Saddleworth. She then used a Visa card to order bunches of flowers from Interflora.
At Minshull Street Crown Court call centre worker Fidler, from Staybridge, who gave birth to her third child in July was brought back before the same judge and was jailed for 12 months after she admitted theft and breach of an ASBO.
Judge Bernard Lever said: ”I remember this case and I remember telling you that if you breached the order you would be sentenced to custody. Yet you rifled a locker again as is your regular behaviour. Everybody has tried with you.”
Fidler’s downfall began in 2000 after she lost her job and became hooked on drugs while living in Huddersfield, West Yorks. To pay off her drug debts the glamorous brunette spent two years preying on users of gyms and swimming baths.
She regularly took wallets and keys from bags and clothes of unsuspecting customers when they were distracted with their children or taking a shower.
On other occasions she tricked staff into opening lockers for her by pretending a friend had left with the key or that she had lost it. She either sold the property or dishonestly used cheques or credit cards to go on spending sprees.
In 2002 she was jailed for three and six months and branded a ‘wholesale thief’ after she admitted 32 offences of theft or deception with 184 offences taken into consideration.
But last year she was back in court again and jailed for a further two years after she admitted looting 65 more lockers between August 2010 last year and February 2011.
Gym users returned to the locker room to find a total of £16,000 worth of goods had been taken – including one woman who had her engagement and wedding rings taken.
Fidler also used credit cards she had taken to buy high-value items from retail parks and withdrew money. In one theft she caused £3,000 damage to lockers at the trendy David Lloyd Leisure Centre in Trafford Park, Manchester.
After being released early from prison on licence, on June 9 2012 she sneaked into The Waterside Hotel and Leisure Centre in Didsbury, Manchester breaking into five separate lockers in the womens changing room and stealing £210 in cash.
Two days later Fidler broke into lockers at the Village Gym in Hyde, stealing four mobile phones worth £1,900 plus £285 in cash and a debit card.
Fidler was spotted by a woman who saw her trying to force open a locker and chased her out of the gym. She later went on intensive eight week treatment program called Fox Recovery House and in October 2012 escaped jail with a two year community order after insisting she had been her addiction was training as a beauty therapist.
At the time of her last court appearance her care officer claimed Fidler had ‘absolutely completed the programme’ and stood ‘head and shoulders’ above others addicts and even wanted to become a recovery mentor herself.
On Tuesday her lawyer Mark Fireman insisted she was still drug free but said in mitigation: “This is a woman who struggled for many years with an addiction to class A drugs.
”She has become a mother again and she wishes to look after her child. She has removed herself from the area where she was committing crime and she has moved away from the people she was committing crime with. It is worth taking a final chance.”
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