Margaret Johnson is known as Birmingham’s notorious ‘Pickpocket Queen’ but is set to be released after psychiatric reports uncovered untreated mental illness behind her 200-offence crime spree
She’s known as the ‘Pickpocket Queen of Birmingham’, with 200 offences and a city centre ban in her pocket. But now a judge has said that Margaret Johnson can go free after the ‘root causes’ of her crime spree have been identified.
The 49-year-old mother has spent more than a year locked up after her most recent rampage with four shoplifting incidents and the burglary of a house in peculiar circumstances.
Birmingham Live has documented Johnson’s lawbreaking record on numerous occasions, with West Midlands Police being particularly vocal on her crime spree.
Known as criminal royalty, her tendency to prey on elderly and vulnerable targets prompted one officer to brand her ‘the most callous villain I’ve had to deal with’, reports
Another officer characterised Johnson as a ‘one woman-crimewave with no conscience’. She infamously once pinched a pensioner’s handbag containing her dead son’s glass eye – a keepsake from his fatal car accident decades prior.
Police have further criticised Johnson for spurning offers of help to curb her offending.
In one memorable incident she flipped a middle finger to one police officer and goaded ‘I’ll be back’ as she was jailed on a previous occasion and led down to the court cells.
So news that she is to be allowed back out on the streets again and given another chance may spark alarm bells for some. But now a psychiatrist believes she can stay on the straight and narrow if she receives the appropriate support for her specific mental health issues, Birmingham Crown Court was told on Tuesday (May 27).
Between December 2024 and May 2025 Johnson committed four shoplifting offences.
They included stealing a charity box from Chaiiwalla in Alum Rock as well as various items from a BandM, Iceland and Tesco.
In the middle of that, on February 14 last year, she committed a burglary.
Prosecutor Lachlan Stewart said: “She entered a multiple occupancy home looking for someone with whom a sexual encounter had been arranged by another person.
“She knocked on doors when she attended the building. One was incidentally open and from that room she stole cigarettes and a small amount of money (£10).”
Johnson subsequently pleaded guilty to burglary and four charges of theft from a shop.
Her prior crime tally stood at 64 previous convictions for 204 offences, with 135 of those being for theft or similar. Recorder Anthony Warner declared she had a ‘dreadful’ record.
But he stated that recently commissioned psychiatric reports concluded it was down to a long period of ‘untreated mental illness and her wish to get money to buy drugs’.
Johnson was born in County Wexford in Ireland. The court heard she is now single but had been married for 15 years, during which her husband was abusive.
She is also the mother to a number of children with whom contact has been denied for a long period of time. Johnson has been previously been assessed as having unstable personality disorder and suspected schizophrenia but did not take her medication and has instead misused drugs.
Recorder Warner stated her time outside of prison has been ‘dogged’ by not having stable accommodation, partly due to her drug-taking.
The probation service has ruled out drug rehabilitation or mental health treatment requirements because she did not fit the criteria.
The psychiatrist who recently assessed Johnson recommended she should be provided with support from an NHS community mental health service.
He diagnosed her with recurrent depressive disorder, adding she was in the ‘midst of a severe episode’ at the time of her latest offences.
The court was also told that the previous ‘loss of a child’ led to prolonged grief disorder which was not addressed, as well as complex post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Johnson was said to be further impacted by various ‘past traumas’ as well as anxiety disorder and cognitive disturbance.
The psychiatrist stated her disorders were ‘enduring and clinically significant’, adding that they ‘directly impair her emotional regularity, stress tolerance, cognitive flexibility and behavioural imposition’.
It was concluded Johnson had a ‘realistic prospect of rehabilitation’ if she was provided with coordinated care from mental health and probation services as well as stable accommodation.
Ordinarly, she would have been handed a minimum three-year sentence due to this being her third conviction for burglary, but Recorder Warner ruled that out due to ‘exceptional circumstances’.
Instead, he sentenced her to a two-year community order with up to 30 days rehabilitation activity.
Recorder Warner said: “The secret to success in your case is cooperation with and keeping in touch with probation. If you do that all will be well. If you don’t this will break down, they will bring you back and a judge will have to consider dealing with you in a different way.”
Johnson has been in custody at HMP Foston Hall in Derbyshire but was told she would be released.
Recorder Warner confirmed she now has paperwork meaning housing authorities are obligated to find her accommodation, after which she will be able to find a GP.
That should then lead to NHS mental health support.