POLICE are warning pensioners to be on their guard after five muggings in a month.

Sixty-three-year-old Dorothy Lawson is the latest to fall victim to a cowardly thug.

And officers say that although crimes of this nature are relatively rare, pensioners should be vigilant when they are out and about.

Det Con Simon Blackwell said: "It is terrible that we have to give out warnings like this, and that someone is targeting the vulnerable and the elderly, but we are asking people to be extra vigilant, especially on the run up to Christmas.

"We would advise pensioners not to go out on their own, especially in the dark, and to try and go out in twos or threes.

The latest incident took place last Wednesday at 4.25pm near a busway subway in Palacefields as Mrs Lawson was on her way home from Halton Lea shopping centre.

She suffered extensive bruising and cuts to her face after a mugger wrenched her handbag, breaking the strap to get it off her shoulder.

Her glasses smashed, cutting her face as she fell to the ground twice. She had to be treated in hospital. A bone in the bridge of her nose has been damaged. The full extent of her injuries will not be known until the swelling goes down.

"It all happened so quickly," said Dorothy, speaking exclusively to the World from her home this week. "I didn't hear anybody behind me. He didn't say a thing.

"It is frightening. It is hard to find the words to describe people who do this.

"What worries me is that they might attack somebody older who could have a heart attack and die. It has made me a bit nervous."

Dorothy, who looks after her elderly mum, works as a home carer for CIC and regularly does shopping for pensioners.

Her company has now offered her transport until she feels confident to walk alone again.

Her attacker was a male, 5ft 8ins tall, of average build. He was wearing a dark anorak with red or orange horizontal panels on the back with a dark stripe in the middle. He also had dark trousers and dark trainers.

But Dorothy is just one of the victims of a spate of attacks on pensioners which have plagued Runcorn in recent weeks and police believe they may be linked.

Just a month has passed since a lady in her 80's was pushed into the bushes and mugged on the subway, and a pensioner in a wheelchair had her handbag snatched nearby at Trident Retail Park.

Five minutes after Dorothy was mugged, another victim was attacked by a man and a woman in exactly the same place.

And a 77-year-old blind man and his wife had their shopping bag containing cash and pension books snatched last Thursday as they walked home in Palacefields.

The couple were shocked but not hurt when a man snatched their blue shopping bag, but police believe that the attack could have been violent had they put up any resistence.

Their attacker was a white male, 5ft 1ins, aged around 20 and was wearing a stone or beige coloured jacket.

Anyone with information about the attacks is asked to contact Runcorn CID on 01244-613935.

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