Sophie Lusk was given her friend’s card and pin number on 29 April to buy a round of drinks while they were out in St Helier.
However, she continued to use the card for the next three days to buy clothes, shoes, a new iPhone 6 and even a tattoo for herself, as well as other items without the friend knowing.
The 19-year-old – who was also in breach of a probation and community service order imposed for a drugs offence – pleaded guilty to three counts of larceny, 27 charges of obtaining goods by false pretences and one count of obtaining services by false pretences.
On Friday she was sentenced to 19 months youth detention by the Royal Court.
Outlining the case, Crown Advocate Emma Hollywood said that the victim did not notice that his card was missing until a few days after he had met Lusk in a bar in town.
The victim contacted his bank to cancel the card and asked for information of the most recent transactions and was told that it had been used in shoe shop Schuh and New Look.
The court heard that Lusk had used the card to buy more than £1,600 worth of goods and services and posted about her purchases on Facebook, which were seen by her friend.
The police obtained CCTV footage at New Look, Topshop, Ashworth & Bird and Jersey Telecoms, which showed that Lusk was present at the time that the card was used.
She was arrested on 1 July and receipts for some of the purchases she had made with the debit card were found at her home address.
‘When asked why, Lusk answered: “Don’t know. Just obviously wasn’t thinking”.’ And admitted that she did not have permission to use the card.
Lusk – whose mother died when she was a child – said that she was remorseful and would pay back the money she had spent.
Some of the items that she had purchased using the card were seized by the police, including a pram she had bought for her godson.
Advocate Jane Grace, defending, said that her client would like a ‘final chance’ to complete a sentence of community service and that the defendant was at the time self-medicating with Valium, which could have impaired her decisions.
‘This does seem to be quite out of character.’
Deputy Bailiff Tim Le Cocq said that the defendant had been given a ‘number of last chances’ but she had been ‘unwilling or unable’ to complete a community service order and the court felt unable to justify a non-custodial sentence.
Mr Le Cocq was sitting with Jurats Mike Liston and Jerry Ramsden.
