A ROMANIAN member of a gang of thieves who targeted elderly women out shopping in Worcestershire has been jailed.

Anghel Gavrila, 43, was part of a gang that carried out distraction thefts in stores across the country, Worcester Crown Court heard. He was caught heading for a flight back to Romania.

Judge Daniel Pearce-Higgins, QC, jailed Gavrila for two years yesterday and said he hoped he would be encouraged to return to Romania when his sentence was finished.

Michael Conry, prosecuting, said the gang targeted vulnerable women all aged over 70 and stole their purses from their handbags as they were out shopping.

“He was travelling across the country with others looking for vulnerable women on their own,” he said. “It’s about as nasty a theft as you can get.”

A number of the thefts in the UK were carried out between December 2015 and May 2016, and when Gavrila was arrested he expressed surprise he had not been caught earlier, Mr Conry said.

The gang, operating usually in teams of either two men or a man and a woman, used techniques to distract their victims while purses were taken out of their handbags.

Gavrila was identified on CCTV at Morrisons in Green Street, Kidderminster, stealing from an 80-year-old woman, who had seen him and another man following her and kept her handbag next to her trolley. But they managed to distract her and took her purse, later taking £900 from her bank account along with £100 in cash.

Gavrila also struck in Malvern, where a 78-year-old woman was out shopping in Waitrose, Mr Conry said. He asked for her help and advice over some items and while she was talking to him, an accomplice took her handbag containing £80 in cash.

Gavrila, of Cardiff Street, Wolverhampton, pleaded guilty to five charges of theft and two of fraud. His total haul of cash was £1,700, the court heard.

Giles Nelson, defending, said Gavrila, who followed proceedings through a Romanian interpreter, had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. He had a wife and children in Romania but also had family he was staying with in the UK.

“His future in this country looks very bleak,” Mr Nelson said.