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Sept
'Cruel' burglar jailed after stealing from elderly Harrogate woman
A “cruel” burglar who preyed on a deaf, elderly woman, stole her purse and went on a shopping splurge with her bank card has been jailed for over four years.
The notorious Josephine Webb already had a reputation for targeting frail, elderly people when she locked sights on the 73-year-old victim who was doing some gardening on her front lawn in Harrogate, York Crown Court heard.
Webb, a prolific thief and burglar with a record dating back more than 40 years, was “prowling” the streets of Harrogate when she seized her chance and came up with a cunning ruse to wheedle her way into the trusting victim’s home.
Prosecutor Dan Cordey said that Webb, 61, came across the grandmother tending her lawn in Station View, Starbeck, just before 1pm on May 31.
Mr Cordey said:
The defendant walked towards her front door while asking her questions.
(The victim) is deaf and was not wearing her hearing aids at the time. She is 73 and lives alone.
Due to her hearing difficulties, the victim couldn’t hear what Webb was saying and went inside her house to get her hearing aids, but as she walked through the hallway and into the living room, Webb crept up behind her.
“When (the victim) turned round, she found the defendant stood right beside her,” said Mr Cordey.
When the victim put her hearing aids in, Webb lied to her that she had been “looking for somebody who wasn’t in” and that she had wanted to post a note through their letterbox.
The kind victim gave Webb an envelope and a pen to write the note, but the despicable thief, who reeked of alcohol, simply walked out of the front door.
York Crown Court
The victim checked her shopping bag and noticed that her purse had gone. Webb had stolen it while distracting her with the tall tale about the post note.
The purse contained the victim’s Barclays debit card and various shopping cards, as well as a £5 note and some loose change.
She called her son who used her banking app to freeze her debit card, but Webb was already using it to buy alcohol.
She made several purchases using the stolen card in separate transactions at local shops until an attempted transaction of £100 was declined at the Tesco Express in Starbeck due to Webb inputting the wrong PIN number.
The victim’s son reported the incident to police and Webb was duly arrested in Spa Lane, near the victim’s home.
They seized the stolen bank card and the victim’s Tesco Club Card from Webb. The purse itself was never recovered after Webb “left it on a bus”.
She was charged with burglary and six counts of fraud to encompass the multiple fraudulent transactions with the bank card.
She admitted the offences and appeared for sentence via video link today (September 3) after being remanded in Low Newton women’s prison.
Webb also admitted a separate theft at a pub in Ripon on March 10 when she stole a woman’s purse and mobile phone. This was “taken into consideration” by the prosecution.
‘I no longer feel safe in my home’
In a statement read out by the prosecution, the elderly burglary victim in Harrogate said she no longer felt safe in her home and the fact that the perpetrator was a woman “made me feel 100 times worse”.
She felt that Webb had taken advantage of her due to her age and disability.
She added:
She has taken my peace of mind. I had never felt vulnerable until now.
She said she now felt “trapped in my home” and kept her doors locked at all times, whereas before she always kept her door ajar for visiting family members.
She added:
This woman’s one cruel act has taken so much from me I can never get back.
Webb, who is from the area but of no fixed address, had a shocking criminal record comprising 100 previous offences, over 60 of which were “theft and kindred”.
This was her ninth conviction for burglary, having serve previous jail sentences in 2015 and 2018, when she was jailed for six years for a house raid.
In those incidents, she used a similar modus operandi to enter the homes of elderly people and steal from them.
Defence barrister Olivia Brooksbank-Laing said that Webb was “ashamed” of what she had done to the elderly Harrogate woman and “deserved” to be jailed.
She said that Webb had stolen the bank card “mainly to buy alcohol” and that drink and drugs had been the root of her offending.
Judge Sean Morris described the offence as a “shocking act against an elderly person”.
He told Webb:
This is your ninth conviction for a dwelling burglary and what sets you apart is the cruelty you show your victims.
You target people who are elderly as you did in this case. It’s had a devastating effect on (the victim’s) life.
People approaching the evening of their lives are entitled to live in peace and tranquility and not have their lives turned upside down by prowling burglars like you. The effect has been dreadful.
He said that an immediate jail sentence was the only option for such a “cruel” offence and to give “the elderly a rest from your (burglary) campaigns”.
Webb was jailed for four-and-a-half years.
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