CARR:89 YEAR OLD WOMAN TIED UP BY CALLOUS THIEVES DURING HOUSE RAID

An 89-year-old woman told a court how callous thieves tied her her up and ransacked her home as they went in search of valuables.

Eileen Mann was marched to her lounge, shoved to the ground and told she would be killed unless she remained silent during the terrifying raid.

Two intruders tied her wrists and legs before cutting her phone line on February 2 this year.

Moments earlier, Ms Mann had returned home from a trip to the Whitgift shopping centre, Croydon, where she withdrew £50 from her bank and visited Marks and Spencers and department store Allders.

Leonard Carr, 46, and Peter Lindsay, 42, are said to have targeted the pensioner after spotting her on a bus as she returned to her home in Warham Road, South Croydon, at around 11.45am.

She had just enough time to put on some slippers before being interrupted, the court heard.

‘The doorbell rang,’ said Ms Mann.

‘I had only just gone through to the lounge – I hadn’t even taken my coat off.’

‘I went to answer it – through the glass I could see that it was a man – and I opened the door and was pushed in.

‘It all happened so quickly.’

The raiders then bundled her down the hallway to her living room before binding her wrists with her own tights and tying up her ankles with a cable.

She said: ‘I realised what was happening – I was saying ‘no, no’, and they roughly told me to shut up.’

‘I was pushed to the floor, and he tried to put a scarf around my mouth. I said I don’t want that filthy thing in my mouth, and I pulled it away.

‘The other man was opening drawers and cupboards.

‘They asked me for my PIN number, which I gave them because I was frightened of what they would do if I didn’t.

‘I thought they would turn violent, and I didn’t see the point of telling them the wrong number.’

During the heist, Ms Mann had the presence of mind to turn around her wedding and diamond-studded engagement rings – hiding the precious stones from the thieves.

They eventually agreed to let her sit on a chair, but turned it around so that she sat facing the wall as they searched for valuables.

Both thieves remained in the house for up to 30 minutes, she said.

After realising the burglars had fled, Ms Mann managed to free her hands and run to neighbours for help.

She was later taken to casualty at Croydon University Hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with a sprained chest and bruised wrists.

Returning home, she found her purse emptied, with missing jewellery including gold, silver and platinum rings, earrings, necklaces and brooches.

A £650 laptop and Nokia mobile phone had also been taken.

Prosecutor Mark Tomassi has told jurors the pair were later recorded on CCTV carrying a laptop that was conspicuously absent from footage from before the burglary.

Lindsay and Carr are said to have carried out three other similar attacks on elderly women in south London in the weeks prior to the burglary.

Lindsay, of (23) Deerbrook Road, Tulse Hill, south London; and Carr, of (Flat 1), 124 Greyhound Lane, Streatham, both south London, deny four counts of aggravated burglary.

The trial continues.
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