Lower Grange 72-year-old terrified by late-night robbery

Jason Bottomley smashed the Key Safe system at the 72-year-old woman’s flat to break in at 1.30am, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

He disconnected her phone and demanded money, shouting threats as she wept in terror.

She feared for her life and told him her two purses were hidden in the fruit bowl, prosecutor Bashir Ahmed said.

Bottomley had grabbed the purses when he was confronted by two police officers alerted by a neighbour at the flats in Lower Grange, Bradford.

Mr Ahmed said Bottomley brandished a screwdriver and struggled violently. He was overpowered and led from the woman’s home in handcuffs.

He pleaded guilty to robbing the pensioner on March 7 this year.

The court heard the woman was too terrified to return to her home of 30 years and had moved into a care home and was dependant on the charity of relatives to make up the increase in her living expenses.

She missed her friends and was upset and traumatised.

Mr Ahmed said she had suffered from arthritis for 15 years and was wheelchair bound.

On the night of the break-in she was woken by a scratching noise outside the bedroom window of her ground-floor flat.

When she turned on her bedside lamp, Bottomley shouted: “Where’s your money? Don’t come out or else.”

She was in tears and frozen with fear, Mr Ahmed said.

The court heard Bottomley had convictions for robbery, wounding and house breaking.

His solicitor advocate, Anne-Marie Hutton, said he did not intend to hurt anyone and his victim never actually saw him.

The robbery was fuelled by Bottomley’s desperate need for class A drugs.

“He knows he can do nothing to deaden the pain that he has caused,” Miss Hutton said.

She said Bottomley had freed himself from drugs while in custody.

“He is an entirely different man from the one who was caught in that lady’s house,” she said.

The judge, Recorder Rodney Jameson QC, told Bottomley: “You have effectively ruined the last years of this lady’s life.”