Woman, 97, robbed by ‘Samaritan’
A GRINNING pickpocket was caught on camera as he “helped” a 97-year-old woman with her shopping – and then stole her purse.
The thief was standing outside a Conservative Club as the pensioner pushed her heavy trolley towards the front door.
Posing as a gentleman in a flat cap and waxed jacket, he smiled and gestured to the ramp before helping to push the trolley inside.
As the victim thanked him, the crook snatched her purse from her handbag. But CCTV outside the club in Bexleyheath, south-east London, caught the crime on film.
The Metropolitan Police has now released the footage in the hope that the thief will be identified.
He struck last Friday and got away with almost £300. Footage shows the suspect stuffing the woman’s purse into his pocket as he strolls away.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: “It is believed the suspect attempted to help the victim, a 97-year-old woman, with her trolley into the Conservative Club before stealing a purse from her handbag containing £265 in cash.
“The suspect is described as a man in his 40s, approximately 6ft tall, stocky build and wearing dark shoes, blue jeans, a grey waxtype jacket with a light blue hood and a dark cap. No arrests have been made and inquiries continue.”
But there was justice for victims of a different kind of daylight robbery this week, as a cowboy tradesman who preyed on the elderly was jailed for four years.
Carlos Price, 64, turned up at pensioners’ homes and badgered them into unwanted and over-priced gardening jobs, forcing them to hand over cash for work never done. One woman, 77, was driven to her cashpoint to withdraw £200 to have trees in her garden cut down – but was ordered out of the car while Price, 46, drove off with her purse.
A man of 76 paid for a fence panel to be replaced, only for two of Price’s accomplices to kick down his existing fence and leave in May last year.
Price, of Prestwich, Greater Manchester, had 31 previous similar offences and had served three years for a £33,000 scam against a 64-yearold man who thought he was having “emergency repairs’’ to his roof.
Sobbing at Manchester Crown Court on Monday, Price admitted fraud and theft.
Daniel Calder, defending, said: “He wants to offer his apologies to these victims.” He said Price had tried to turn his life around but began struggling with cocaine addiction after the death of a close friend.
He said Price “struggles to remember the offences as he was under the influence of cocaine at the time. He expresses his sincere remorse”.
Judge Angela Nield said: “This was a string of despicable offences against vulnerable, elderly and often naive individuals.”