Disabled Hamilton OAP robbed by three men

Dec 17 2009 by Gary Fanning, Hamilton Advertiser

A DEAF and partially-blind pensioner this week told how three girls of Eastern European origin robbed her outside Sainsbury’s in Hamilton.

The 78-year-old woman said that she was visiting the supermarket in Douglas Park Retail Park when she was targeted by the heartless gang.

The OAP, who doesn’t want to be named, had just paid for her shopping at the store,

She was about to put her trolley in the bay when she was approached by a young woman who spoke poor English.

The woman was holding a £2 coin in front of the elderly lady.

The pensioner thought that the woman was looking for a £1 coin for the trolley.

It’s believed that during the distraction one of the other girls in the gang stolen the elderly lady’s wallet from her handbag.

It later emerged that the OAP was missing two bank cards and the gang used her bank card to withdraw £300 from a cash machine at Hamilton’s ASDA.

She said: “I paid for my shopping on my card and when finished I put it in the zip inside my handbag.

“A young woman came up and stood in front of me and she put her hand out.

“I am partially blind so I couldn’t recognise her face.

“I thought she was offering me a £1 coin for the trolley which I was taking back.

“My hearing is impaired although I have a very high-powered hearing aid but I couldn’t work out what she was saying as her English wasn’t very good.

“Then the two other women appeared out of the blue

“One of the other women held out a £2 coin.

“I made a mistake of pulling out my purse and offered them to pick two £1 coins to take from my hand.”

The OAP said she couldn’t understand the women because they were speaking broken English .

However, she said that she recoginsed a Polish accent as she was friendly in the past with a Polish woman.

The distraught pensioner said that she then put her money back in her purse and went to the car where her friend was waiting.

The OAP added: “I later went to look for my Bank of Scotland wallet with my card and discovered it wasn’t there.

“I thought that I had lost it at Sainsbury’s when I was paying for my shopping.

“I went back to the shop to see if they had found it.

“I explained to the supervisor what happened outside with the girls and she looked as if it had happened before.

“She said that hopefully the store have those responsible for the theft captured on the CCTV cameras.

“The bank later told me that they had taken £300 from my bank card about 15 minutes after the theft at the cash machines at ASDA in Hamilton.

“They must have had a car lined up to take them so quickly down there.

“I don’t know how they would have managed to get my pin number to take the money.

“I don’t have the pin number written down anywhere. Nobody knows my pin number except myself.

“I was paying for my shopping at Sainsbury’s and punched in my pin number to pay for the shopping.

“There was only an elderly Chinese woman who was standing behind me and she could not have seen what numbers I had punched in.

“I am told that the gangs are now filming people with mobile cameras and recording them punching in their pin numbers when they pay for their messages.

“I think it is important to alert people what’s going on so they will be on the alert.”

Anyone with information on the incident should contact Hamilton Police Office on 483300, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111, where calls are free.