A NEWPORT woman who went on the run after stealing nearly £89,000 worth of jewellery is beginning a jail sentence.

Newport crown court heard that Hungarian-born Eva Kovacs, 66, was arrested in September last year after stealing toiletries from a Cardiff branch of Boots. At the time of her arrest, she was wanted for her part in an audacious distraction theft from a Cardiff jewellers in 1997.

Her two accomplices in the crime were tried and convicted but Kovacs fled to Hungary after the theft and returned to Wales only last year.

She was tried and convicted of both the jewellery offence and of shoplifting from Boots. At her sentencing at Newport crown court, Judge Tom Crowther described the jewellery offence as "an audacious theft".

He said Kovacs entered the shop with two accomplices, one of whom is now serving 15 months in prison for playing a part in the offence.

Judge Crowther told Kovacs: "You were a principal actor, if not the principal actor, in that theft."

The gang got away with four diamond rings with a retail value of £88,900. Speaking at her sentencing at Newport crown court, prosecutor Martyn Kelly said Kovacs, of Commercial Street, Newport, was arrested outside a Cardiff branch of Boots in September last year.

He said she admitted to police in interview that she had a skirt with pockets sewn inside as an aid to shoplifting.

Kovacs' defending barrister said his client had an "obsessive personality disorder". He said he accepted a prison sentence was inevitable but asked the judge to suspend the sentence on the grounds that his client was suffering a deterioration of the spine and was on drug treatment to help her personality disorder.

But Judge Crowther said: "It has to be a term that reflects the gravity of the matter." He sentenced her to two years' imprisonment - ordering that she serve one year in prison, with the second year being suspended.