A NEWPORT house was packed with stolen property, with clothes on rails ready for visitors to buy cut-price goods, a court heard.

Tanya Rose Davies, 36, turned her home on the Duffryn estate into an illegal outlet for stolen goods, Newport magistrates were told.

Davies planned for friends and family to visit her home in Cormorant Way, Duffryn, to buy clothes, and other goods including boxed electrical items and toys, all available at a reduced price.

Police raided her home in September, seizing goods with a retail value of almost £5,000, stolen from various high street shops including Matalan, Peacocks, Ethel Austin, Comet, Sainsburys and Bon Marche between June and September 12.

Officers from Newport's Priority Policing Team are targeting the receivers of stolen goods in a crackdown on the lucrative trade.

Prosecutor Catherine Yardley told the court: "Davies bought goods at a fraction of their real value for a set price from a woman who came to her door.

"She eventually believed the property was stolen but intended selling it on to friends and family."

Davies claimed she was given the goods by a woman who called at her home with bags filled with the stolen property.

Her solicitor, Martin Brown told the court: "The other person in this case could not be prosecuted because there is no evidence, so she stands in the dock alone."

He added the offer of cheap goods was one Davies could not turn down. "She had not sold any of the things in the house and owed £1000 to the woman who brought her the bags in the first place."

Davies admitted 11 counts of receiving stolen goods and will be sentenced later this month.

* A senior figure in the bid to revive Newport's shopping centre has called for people to unite against the problems of shoplifters.

Malcolm Hall, chairman of the Newport Town Centre Partnership, said: "People who are stealing from stores are doing so very much to order.

"I welcome the extra efforts that are being made to deal with this problem.

"And the public also have a role to play. Communities have neighbourhood watch schemes, and we would like to see that spirit brought into the town centre, where if people see someone shoplifting or acting suspicious, they report it to a member of staff."

* In the picture: PC Vicky Williams with some of the recovered stolen goods