A JUDGE jailed a man for five years for a series of drive-by handbag snatches, including ripping the bag from the hands of a 72-year-old woman as he drove past in a stolen car.

Jamie Lee Benson, of Second Avenue, Atherton, appeared at Bolton Crown Court in handcuffs to be sentenced for robbery, two thefts and taking a vehicle without consent.

Benson told the court he had carried out the thefts following a serious beating by a gang of men, who thought he had been involved in a crime. He had become homeless after the attack and turned to crime when he went back to using heroin.

But, in sentencing him, assistant recorder Robert Warnock said Benson had an appalling record for man of his age and told him: " Preying on the elderly and the weak causes great upset and distress."

He snatched the handbag of pensioner Margaret Evans, who was walking with her daughter Hilary Evans near Eckersley Precinct in Atherton, in March this year. As Benson drove past he leant out of the window and snatched the old lady's bag, causing both women to fall on the floor. The 72-year-old suffered minor injuries and is now too scared to go out on her own.

Two days later, he targeted 46-year-old Gabrielle Warburton, who had just parked her car in Tesco supermarket in Crabtree Lane and snatched a bag from her shoulder. And during the same period, another woman, Karen Duncan, watched in horror as she saw Benson driving past her in her own car, which had been stolen. She followed him in her husband's car, but she gave up the chase after he acted aggressively towards her.

In his next attack Benson mounted the pavement at Flapper Fold Lane in Atherton and snatched a bag from 68-year-old Margaret Connell.

The court was told that in 1996, 24-year-old Benson had been jailed for four years for similar crimes in Westhoughton and Horwich.

Defending, Brian McKenna said that when Benson was released from prison last time, he had no home to live in because his mother and sister had moved away. He had stopped taking heroin in prison.

He was living at various friends' addresses until he was severely beaten and ended up taking heroin again.