CONDOMS offered no protection from the law for a bungling thief.

For a woman found herself in court after repeatedly attempting to steal a condom machine from Darlington railway station.

Amanda Armstrong and a male accomplice were twice disturbed trying to wrestle the machine, worth £75, from a toilet wall shortly before midnight on August 6.

Security guards had been alerted to a disturbance in the loos and their presence caused the pair to eventually flee the station empty handed.

However, the determined duo returned early next morning and managed to stow their unusual haul in a shopping trolley before attempting to make a not-so-subtle getaway.

Paul Power, prosecuting at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court, said: “They returned to the station at about 6.20am and were seen by staff to be pushing a trolley with the machine in it.

“When asked where they got it from, they said they didn’t know – it was just there.”

Armstrong, of Bridge Street, Tow Law, County Durham, pleaded guilty to two counts of theft for attempting to steal the machine belonging to East Coast Trains.

Magistrates adjourned sentencing to allow for the preparation of reports after her solicitor told the court that the alcoholic 37-year-old, who has a long history of offending, was trying to turn her life around.

Richard Copsey, mitigating, said Armstrong had been under the influence of her controlling partner – and accomplice - at the time.

“He’s a very cunning gentleman and she had taken up with him and was drinking and doing all sorts," he added.

“I’ve dealt with him and he is one of those very sly, cunning people who will take advantage of all sorts of people and she was one of them.”

“To be walking down a train station platform at 6.30am with a condom machine in a shopping trolley only means one thing – incompetence.”

* The condom machine joins a host of strange items stolen by thieves across the world, including five tonnes of Nutella stolen in Germany, an entire Turkish bridge, a Russian church stolen brick by brick and £3,000 worth of knickers nicked from a shop in Texas.