A PSNI officer jailed for shoplifting has successfully appealed her six-month sentence.

Linda Totten (50), whose address was given as Enniskillen PSNI station, has had her custodial term reduced to two months after a hearing at the Court of Appeal in Belfast today (Wednesday).

Due to time already served in custody, Totten is expected to be released immediately.

The policewoman had strenuously denied shoplifting from her local Asda store on two occasions in December 2013.

However, she was found guilty by the jury at her second trial at Dungannon Crown Court at the end of November last year.

The jury at her first trial had been unable to reach a verdict.

Sentencing Totten at Armagh courthouse last month, Judge Neil Rafferty QC told her that while the public expected those entrusted to uphold the law, she had brazenly gone into the Enniskillen store “to steal”.

“This is mature woman who deliberately and with premeditation went to that store to steal and did so on two occasions,” said the judge, who added, given her police service and medical condition, he would temper justice with mercy.

“Nevertheless it is my view that the offending in this particular case was so serious, so premeditated and so culpable that only an immediate custodial sentence will suffice,” said Judge Rafferty.

Totten subsequently applied for permission to appeal the six-month jail term.

The case was heard before the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Declan Morgan, along with fellow judges Lord Justice William Stephens and Sir Malachy Higgins, at the Court of Appeal in Belfast today.

Upon hearing from counsel on behalf of both Totten and the Crown, the three judges allowed the appeal against the sentence.

They then quashed the six-month sentence passed at trial and substituted it with a total custodial term of two months.