A ROBBER who elbowed a 78-year-old woman in the face as he snatched her purse was jailed for almost four years yesterday.

Anthony Evans, 30, of Arnold Road, Darlington, was caught on a supermarket's security cameras earlier as he followed frail Margaret Cowell while she did her shopping.

He broke her glasses, and left her with a cut lower lip, and swollen upper lip and nose, said prosecutor Shaun Dodds.

She had since become confused, frightened and scared to go shopping alone, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Evans fled the scene, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, by taxi. Just 90 minutes later, her bank cards were being used in Darlington by two women, said Mr Dodds.

Store assistants at JJB Sports became suspicious and they alerted the police, who arrested Evans lurking outside.

Evans said that, initially, he went into the Newton Aycliffe Somerfield store to shoplift.

Jamie Hill, defending, said Evans had given up drugs after a warning from a judge in January last year, when he was given probation for handling stolen gold chains.

But he still owed £1,000 to drug-dealers, who had threatened him for falling behind with his £50-a- week repayments.

Evans had not intended to injure Mrs Cowell and he offered a courtroom apology to her, said Mr Hill.

Judge John Walford told him: "This was a serious robbery because you deliberately targeted a 78-year-old woman and you used some violence in order to wrest from her purse."

Evans was jailed for three years and ten months after he pleaded guilty to the May 19 robbery, to shoplifting three days earlier, and for the original handling offence, for which he was put on probation.