A HUSBAND and wife pick-pocketing team who repeatedly targeted pensioners in Burnley and Pendle have each been jailed for 10 months.

Aura Luca, 28, and Pardalian Luca, 36, had started stealing cash in Colne and then went to Brierfield and on to Burnley.

The couple, who struck five times in the space of three-and-a-half hours, took one 67-year-old’s purse containing £25, her bank card and PIN number, while she browsed in a charity shop.

Within minutes of the theft, £190 had been withdrawn from her bank account, followed by attempts to take out £300 and £200.

The hearing was told how their next target was an 88-year-old woman who was shopping in Brierfield Co-op.

Aura Luca had held open the freezer door for the victim as a friendly gesture.

But, as Luca was distracting her and ‘playing nice’, her husband was helping himself to the woman’s purse with £40 inside.

The incidents were caught on CCTV.

The defendants, Romanians who have several children between them, went into Marks & Spencer in Burnley, where Aura distracted two more elderly women while her accomplice dipped into their bags, trying to steal more cash.

They were seen on CCTV by security staff, arrested and police discovered the earlier offences.

The Lucas, most recently living in Bradford, were at the time subject to 12-week prison terms, suspended for 12 months, imposed by Blackburn magistrates on February 12, after they had stolen from an elderly woman.

They each admitted three counts of theft and had been committed for sentence, two allegations of attempted theft, all committed on April 2, and being in breach of the suspended sentence.

The court heard Luca had already been to prison three times, twice in Romania and once in France. The pair had been on remand since April 4.