A GRANDMOTHER threatened to stab a supermarket security guard with a syringe after being spotted on closed-circuit television stealing a £15 bottle of vodka.

Henry Powell had challenged Sharon Randell, 46, outside Tesco’s store in Hamble Lane, Bursledon, when she produced the syringe, telling him: “Don’t come near me or I’ll stab you.

I have HIV.”

Prosecutor Rebecca Austen told Souhampton Crown Court Mr Powell was so scared he grabbed a traffic cone to put distance between them before she was able to get away on a scooter.

Randell admitted using threatening words or behaviour and possessing a bladed article. She also pleaded guilty to two counts of battery, and possessing another bladed article which she brought out in the back of a police van after she had been detained for suspected shoplifting at Marks & Spencer.

Judge Patrick Hooton told the grandmother-of-four – who had 184 previous convictions: “Goodness knows what young grandchildren think of their grandmother who has become an old lag.”

He told Randell that she didn’t deserve it, but he would defer sentencing for six months.

Thomas Horder, defending, said Randell had started using drugs when she was 14 but had kept out of trouble from 2009 until last Christmas when her partner – who was sitting by the public gallery in a wheelchair – fell 45ft and broke his neck and back.

He spent four months in hospital before being released into her care. She became his sole carer but it was a role with which she could not properly cope and she returned to using drugs in February and committing these offences.

Randell, of Copenhagen Towers, Weston, will return to the city crown court on May 15 for sentencing.