She was dubbed the real-life Vicky Pollard – a tracksuit-wearing tearaway who found notoriety as Britain’s most prolific thief.
For years, Jade Underwood terrorised neighbours with daily stealing sprees and violent, abusive behaviour. Shoplifting everything from perfume to joints of meat, the brazen 23-year-old even took to Facebook to brag about her crimes.
In May, Jade was slapped with a CRASBO – a criminal anti-social behaviour order – and banned from 80 shops, including almost every store in her hometown of Cheadle Heath near Stockport, Manchester.
Then in August – after stealing £110 worth of perfume from Debenhams and being found guilty of four counts of theft – she was jailed for five weeks.
But now, released on licence, Jade says prison was her wake-up call and she’s finally ready to turn over a new leaf after quitting her drug and booze habit.
She says: “I’d been to prison before, but only a Young Offenders’ place. This time I was in real prison, with people who’d done proper bad s**t.
“It was scary and you have plenty of time to think about what you’ve been doing. I’d been drinking and taking drugs every day for years – I used to spend £50 a day just on weed. But without that in jail, I could think straight and realised I could do better.”
Now Jade – who was expelled from school at 15 after locking a teacher in a cupboard – is trying to pay her own way.
Although she’s never had a job and admits she found shoplifting “an easier way to get money than working,” she’s lined up an interview at a call centre.
Jade says: “It’ll be hard – I’ve been tempted to go stealing again, but I won’t. I hope I get the job. Then I want to go to college and do hairdressing. I’m going to try to put things right.”
Now living in a hostel several miles away from Stockport, Jade says she’s steering clear of her old party gang, adding: “They were people I used to take drugs with, but they weren’t real friends. I don’t see any of them now.
“I see my mum – despite everything she’s stuck by me – and my brother and sisters but that’s it. I’m ashamed about what I’ve put my mum through.
“People would shout at me in the street – calling me Vicky Pollard or whatever – but I’d just tell them to fk off. I was a b***d but there was a reason for it.”
Jade says losing custody of her six-year-old son when he was just a baby left her emotionally scarred. She started using drink and drugs to block out the pain – and shoplifting to fund it.
Her son was taken into care at six months old after police were called to the home she shared with his dad. Since then he has been raised by his paternal grandmother with Jade allowed occasional visits.
“Christmas, birthdays, I’ve missed all of it,” she says sadly. “I see him in the street and he doesn’t even know me now – not properly. I want to sort myself out and get him back. When they took him away everything went wrong. I used weed, amphetamines and drink to forget and shoplifted to pay for it.
“I’d get stuff I knew I could sell – fake tan, Yankee Candles, legs of lamb or beef, bottles of alcohol and make-up. I could steal £300-£400 worth a day. I never used to get caught – I suppose I knew what I was doing. In a way I felt relieved when I went to prison – it was like getting a chance to seek help.”
Jade’s now on medication for depression and sees a support worker regularly. She adds: “As long as my family know I’m not going to let them down again, that’s all that matters. I just want to get my boy back.”
By Claire Donnelly
Shoplifters & Proud airs later this month on Channel 5