A have-a-go hero supermarket assistant foiled the escape of a shoplifter by blocking his car until police arrived on the scene, magistrates have been told.

Natalie Dean, a customer assistant at the Ammanford branch of Lidl, spotted the thief making for the exit without paying for items and followed him into the car park.

When she saw him getting into his car, Ms Dean stood behind the vehicle so that he was unable to reverse out of his parking spot to make his getaway.

Llanelli court was told how Ms Dean spotted 31-year-old Mathew Morris walking towards the till area at 5pm on May 29.

Morris, of 4 Carregamman Isaf, lifted the security gate at a closed till and headed towards the exit.

“Ms Dean could see he had a number of items from the store in his arms,” prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard Jones told the court.

“He had made no attempt to go to the tills to pay for them.

“He simply went through the exit door.

“The alarms activated but he continued to walk out into the car park.”

The court heard how Ms Dean gave chase and when she reached the exit of the store, the eagle-eyed cashier saw him ducking down between cars to hide.

Morris eventually got into the driver’s seat of a blue Renault Clio.

“She immediately went up behind the car to stop him reversing out of his parking place,” Mr Pritchard Jones told the court.

Ms Dean remained at her post until police arrived five minutes later and arrested Morris.

When officers confronted Morris, he said: “I don’t know why I do it.”

He had a set of iPod headphones, a set of Bluetooth headphones and a socket spanner set, with a combined value of £99.97.

He pleaded guilty to shoplifting.

Mike Read, defending, told the court that Morris was battling a ten-year drug addiction and at the time of the offence had been waiting for a prescription for Subutex, a drug used to ease long-term users off heroin.

However, while there is usually a standard six-week delay between a user being granted a prescription and their first receipt of the drug, Morris had been waiting almost 16 weeks.

“He was desperate for Subutex because he wanted to get off heroin,” Mr Read told the court.

“He stole the items to get money to buy it on the blackmarket.

“If this prescription had started when it should have this theft would not have happened.”

Probation officer Tim Jenkins told magistrates it was unacceptable that Morris had had to wait so long for help.

“We, the Probation Service, need to ask questions as to why this took 16 weeks,” he said.

The court was told Morris committed the theft while subject of an 18-week suspended jail term.

Magistrates told him: “We do feel the Probation Service has let you down but we do not feel we ignore the suspended sentence.”

Morris was jail for four weeks, with his original sentence activated, giving him a 22-week total jail term.

He was also ordered to pay a £150 court charge and an £80 victim surcharge upon his release.