A 67-year-old woman banged her head as she grappled with a street mugger, a jury heard yesterday.

Doris Hardisty was walking along Leylands Lane in Heaton in February last year when her attacker ran up from behind and grabbed the bag she was carrying over her shoulder.

In a statement read to a jury at Bradford Crown Court she said: "I was pulled around and down to the ground. As this happened my head was banged. I think it was on the stone wall in the gateway.

"The bag was taken from me. I felt my head, expecting there to be blood, but there was none."

As a result of the attack she was left with a lump on her head and a sore hip.

Kevin Clark, 35, of Beacon Road, Bradford, and his brother Vincent, 30, of Vignola Terrace, Bradford, have both gone on trial accused of robbery.

They both deny the allegation.

Kevin Clark has also denied a separate allegation of theft which relates to an incident the day before the robbery when 83-year-old Irene Buckley was tricked into getting out of her car outside a chemist shop in Clayton Road.

In her statement she described how she had collected a prescription and was sitting in the driver's seat when a man approached the passenger side and suggested there was something wrong with her tyre.

As she went round to look the man moved to the driver's side and grabbed her bag.

Prosecutor Simon Waley said on both occasions the man who grabbed the bags escaped in a waiting Mazda car.

The incident involving the 83-year-old victim was witnessed by passer-by Joanne Crabtree, who claimed to have recognised the car involved.

She told the court how the next day see saw the car again and even queued up behind the mugger in the post office.

She later picked out Kevin Clarke on an identfication parade as the man she saw taking the bag from the car and she also identified his brother Vincent as the driver of the Mazda the morning after.

The brothers were arrested in the Mazda about six hours after the robbery offence, but they both told police that the car had been "swapped" the day before.

They said the vehicle had been traded for another one at about 9.30am on the 10th of February and they only got it back at tea-time the next day.

During a search of the Mazda officers found documents purporting to be receipts for the swapping of the cars, but Mr Waley said it was the prosecution's case that they had been produced to back up their story.

The trial continues.