Another pensioner robbed in her home in County Armagh

Another pensioner has been robbed in the latest wave of attacks on the elderly across Northern Ireland.

The latest incident happened in the Mowhan area in County Armagh at about 6pm on Thursday.

The 86-year-old woman was robbed of several hundred pounds when she allowed a woman, reportedly in her 30s, who asked for a drink of water into her home.

After she left, the elderly lady noticed the cash and a document box were missing.

The raid is the fourth attack against elderly people across the province this week.

A police spokesperson has said despite these recent attacks highlighted in the media, the elderly (as in people over 50 years old) are less likely to get attacked as a rule. Over three years the PSNI reported 800 attacks were carried out on the elderly. This is in comparison to the 150,000 attacks that are reported every year, a police spokesman added.

“Work to tackle this type of crime is ongoing, and we work particularly with community groups and local charities to inform the elderly and to ask their neighbours to check in on them regularly.”

92-year-old Annie Warke became the third elderly victim of a violent robbery on Thursday when she was assaulted in her house in Ballymoney.

She was tied up in the house in Henry Street for two and a half hours before being discovered by a neighbour. In the second attack an elderly woman was attacked at gunpoint in her south Belfast home on Wednesday.

In the first of such attacks this week an 84-year-old woman from Twaddell Avenue in north Belfast was attacked.

Two men conned their way into her home and locked the pensioner in her bathroom while they ransacked every room of the house, leaving with a small amount of money.

The elderly woman escaped by breaking the window with her shoe, dropping five feet to the ground. She sustained injuries to her arms and had to have 13 stitches to her hand.

The Ulster Unionist Assembly member James Leslie has called for mandatory jail sentences to be imposed on people convicted of attacking the elderly.

The North Antrim MLA said: “The elderly need to be protected and this is one way in which society can send out a strong signal that such behaviour will not be tolerated.

“I believe we should be looking at urgent ways of trying to give special protection to the most vulnerable members of society.

“If these evil people are not deterred from putting senior citizens through such terrifying ordeals then it would be reprehensible.” (AMcE)