CARR: PAIR PREYED ON ELDERLY DURING TERRYING BURGLARIES

Two heartless thieves stalked elderly women on buses before forcing their way in to their homes in a series of ‘disgraceful’ raids, the Old Bailey heard.

Leonard Carr, 46, and Peter Lindsay, 42, followed the pensioners home, assaulted them and demanded valuables and bank details.

They carried out four attacks in just a fortnight, cutting their victim’s phone lines before binding, gagging and hitting the helpless women, it was said.

On each occasion they then rang the doorbell before forcing past the startled women, who were aged between 65 and 88, and fled with just a few hundred pounds and possessions.

Prosecutor Mark Tomassi said the burglaries were ‘worrying and disgraceful’.

All of the women were either ordered to look away or blindfolded and none of them were able to give detectives an accurate description of their attacker, the court heard.

Mr Tomassi told jurors: ‘The victims of each of these domestic burglaries were targeted, assessed, followed to their homes, and then quite disgracefully dealt with once the burglars were inside.

‘They would barge in, subjecting the householders to violence – excessive force is used in each case – and they were then locked in their homes and left to their own devices.

‘They are beaten and they are injured.

‘It must have been truly terrible.’

Georgina Simmonds, 75, was selected as a victim as she travelled by bus to visit her 65-year-old friend Margaret Warne, in Victoria Rise, Streatham, sw London, on January 14 this year.

As she reached the door of the ground floor flat, Ms Simmonds was forced in by two men who attempted to pull her hat over her face before demanding money and jewellery.

‘She pleaded and begged with her attackers,’ said Mr Tomassi.

‘She was forced into a chair, her hair and head covered with a blanket, and she was bound.’

Meanwhile, Ms Warne was slapped and feared that she was going to be raped, the court heard.

The burglars fled with £100 in cash and cigarettes.

Hours later the same day, Lindsay and Carr are said to have targeted Jean Carpenter, 83, as she returned home from a shopping trip on the number 159 bus.

She was manhandled after answering the door at her home in Aliwall Road, Clapham, with the thieves fleeing with jewellery and £500 in cash.

Two weeks later, on January 28, 78-year-old Brenda Hindmarsh, was ‘beaten repeatedly’ after arriving home in Thornton Heath from a trip to an Iceland supermarket.

The court heard that her rings, a bracelet, mobile phone and a bankcard were stolen, after she was gagged and tied up.

Eileen Mann, the eldest victim at 88, travelled home to Warham Road, South Croydon, on the 119 bus after visiting the Whitgift shopping centre on February 2.

Lindsay and Carr were captured on CCTV travelling on the bus with her, but deliberately sat apart from each other despite being lifelong friends, the court heard.

Mr Tomassi said: ‘She had not been home long when the bell rang.

‘She saw two black males, the door was pushed open, and she was pushed in.

‘She screamed out, to be met with ‘shut up or I’ll kill you’.’

The court heard that Ms Mann had the presence of mind to turn her rings around in order to hide the valuable gems.

The pensioner was bound with her own tights before the burglars made off with cash, a bank card, laptop and jewellery.

Both men are linked to the burglaries by CCTV footage, Oyster card records, and a laptop computer stolen in the fourth raid, jurors were told.

Mr Tomassi told the court that both men were expected to deny that they had any involvement in the burglaries.

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.
ends