A court has ordered a Castelo Branco woman to pay a fine of 1,265 euros for stealing trousers and a dress worth 49.94 euros from two shops in the town’s shopping centre. She was also ordered to pay court costs and compensation of €19.95 for damage caused to her trousers when the alarm was removed. The two thefts occurred in December 2020 and were discovered shortly after a woman and her 16-year-old daughter left the second store. They were both chased by a security guard at a shopping center and, while escaping, threw two stolen items of clothing into the bushes. The woman appeared in court, disagreed with the verdict handed down by the Castelo Branco court and filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal of Coimbra, which confirmed this decision in a ruling of January 10. The woman argued that she should have been convicted of only one theft, not two, because the two stores that were robbed had the same owner and “the same victim.” The judges disagreed and concluded that “these were two offenses of theft” because “the defendant worked twice in two different stores.” “Although both stores are located in a shopping center, the truth is that the defendant’s actions indicate a renewal of her criminal resolve, as she entered two different stores and then stole two different items of clothing,” the ruling emphasizes.