TWO women who moved themselves into an elderly man's house and allegedly turned it into a drugs den have been banned by a court.

Neighbours said the women had used the vulnerable man's home for years.

Their disruptive behaviour forced landlord Housing Hartlepool to obtain an anti-social behaviour injunction barring the women from his home.

Middlesbrough County Court was told how how Sharon Mincher, of Ivy Grove, Hartlepool, and Beverley Anderson, of no fixed address, used the house for "illegal and immoral purposes", including drugs use.

The injunctions, which run for 12 months, forbid the women from entering the Blake Street area of Hartlepool and Blake Walk, a sheltered housing development for elderly and vulnerable tenants.

If they are spotted in the neighbourhood, they could be arrested by police.

A neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said the man who had been targeted by Mincher and Grove was gullible and very vulnerable.

He said: "He is a canny bloke, but he is one of those people who if you sent him a letter saying he had won a fortune, he would believe it.

"These women took advantage of him and used his home from time to time. They were just putting on him. It went on for two or three years, as far as I know.

"I don't know what they were up to, they just used his place and used him. He used to say that one of them was his fiancee."

The neighbour added: "It's a good thing that they are getting people like this out of the area."

Andy Powell, director of housing services at Housing Hartlepool, said: "The injunctions against the women should serve to warn troublemakers that we will not tolerate anti-social behaviour by our tenants or by others in the neighbourhoods we manage.

"People have the right to live their lives in peace, and we will use the law to ensure that they are not disturbed."

The action follows injunctions taken out in March by Hartlepool Housing against four squatters who were plaguing the lives of residents in the town's Dunbar Road.

The group, which moved into the home of a vulnerable man, held parties with loud music, drank in public, intimidated neighbours and passers-by and used foul language.