AN ex-convent schoolgirl and her partner-in-crime who swept through Worcestershire on a mammoth shoplifting spree have escaped jail.

Droitwich magistrates gave the pair an 18-month conditional discharge and told them they were lucky not to have been locked up.

Stephanie Killick and Louisa Davis appeared in court yesterday and admitting stealing almost £60 of toiletries and cosmetics from Boots in Worcester.

But it emerged the High Street chemist was their last stop in on Tuesday, September 25.

Kiernan Cunningham, prosecuting, said they had targeted a number of stores across the county stretching from Droitwich right up to Bromsgrove and Merry Hill, near Dudley.

Twenty-year-old Killick asked for six other thefts - mostly clothes from River Island, Warehouse and New Look - to be taken into consideration. Davis accepted eight more.

Mr Cunningham said a Boots store detective spotted the pair loitering by the perfume counter just before 11am.

He watched them stuffing toiletries into a Marks & Spencer carrier bag before walking out into CrownGate. He collared them in a nearby store, marched them back to Boots and called the police.

Police found Davis with a de-tagging device she had stolen from a shop in Bromsgrove. Killick, of Wyche Road in Droitwich, had a pair of pliers.

Both said they were "glad" they had been caught and wrote to Boots to say sorry.

Juliet Simms, defending Killick, a former pupil at St Mary's Convent School in Worcester, said her parents' divorce had affected her badly. She had been on anti-depressants and had tried to harm herself.

"It's fair to say that she's punished herself considerably through the embarrassment she's brought to her family," she said.

Davis' solicitor Charles Hamer said the 19-year-old, of Ryde Park Road, Rednal, Birmingham, was a "very intelligent young woman".

But three years ago yesterday, her best friend had died in a horrific smash on the A449 Worcester to Malvern road which had traumatised her.

"The offences speak for themselves," he said.

"This was joint offending - a shoplifting spree. She's done wrong and she's very conscious of that wrongdoing."

The bench told the pair to each pay £59 prosecution costs.

"For going around on an organised shoplifting venture - equipped as well - you could have gone to prison," the chairman of the bench warned.

"That would have been a wonderful start for two young ladies."