A serial thief who stole more than $30,000 of property has been found unfit to plead to charges.
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A Canberra court on Wednesday found Jenny Tian, 52, had committed 47 counts of theft and possession of stolen property, but dismissed the charges because of her mental impairment.
Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker placed Tian in the care of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, so it can make a mental health treatment order.
Court documents said police raided Tian's Lyons home in September last year after she stole and attempted to steal several items from a Civic post office.
Police who entered the house found rooms full of large piles of property such as magazines, clothing, vitamins, food, CDs, DVDs, and books.
All of the items displayed retail store tags, price stickers, or Libraries ACT labelling.
Police inquiries revealed some the property had been stolen from stores in Woden and Civic.
A month earlier, Tian had been arrested after she stole items worth about $487.21 from shops at the Canberra Centre.
Court documents said security recognised Tian and watched as she stuffed chocolate and clothing into a bag.
She apologised when confronted and a search revealed she had stolen socks, wallets, a handbag, chocolate, shirts, and an anti-theft travel bag.
Police also raided Tian's home in April 2012 to discover a large hoard of stolen property. The haul included more than 220 items of clothing, more than 100 DVDs and CDs, purses, and vitamins, which had been taken from stores in Woden and Griffith.
Court documents estimated the total value of the property relating to the 47 charges as $33,715.87.
The papers also noted that police continue to contact retail stores in an attempt to return the stolen items.
It is the second time Tian has had charges against her dropped on account of being unfit to plead. In 2011, she was accused of stealing property worth about $2 million from Canberra retailers over a decade and stashing it at her southside home.
The store of stolen property was so large, it took hundreds of volunteers many months to catalogue part of the hoard, but they did not get through it all.
Part of that haul included hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of books that had been pinched from the Australian National University's library, the university's co-op bookshop, and other Canberra bookstores.
