RUTHLESS burglars are targeting vulnerable elderly residents in a warden-controlled home.

Tenants at Brookdale Court in Pennington Road, Leigh are living in fear after a spate of break-ins and attacks where concrete slabs were hurled through windows and intruders discovered in bedrooms.

In the latest harrowing incident at the sheltered accommodation complex 91-year-old great-grandmother Mary Hill woke to find an early morning burglar lifting the mattress she was lying on in a desperate search for valuables.

Mary could only watch in terror as the man ransacked her bedroom by torchlight for about a half-hour until a neighbour raised the alarm.

He smashed his way into Mary's flat before 6am by throwing a paving slab through the lounge window.

Mary said: "Someone has tried to break in three times before."

Her worried son Stephen added: "My mother is deaf without her hearing aid so she would not have heard the lounge window being smashed. There has been no violence up to now but our big fear is that it will be the next step."

The incidents have left residents shaken and terrified, some claim they are unable to sleep at nights and one admitted she is too scared to turn off her lights.

Now residents held an emotive meeting with a housing department representative and demanded better security at Brookdale Court.

Great-grandmother May Wilkinson, aged 74, said security at the home is not tight enough. She returned from a holiday in Blackpool to find her video and jewellery had been stolen.

Mother-of-five May, said: "Someone got into my home by throwing a paving flag through my window and took all sorts of things."

For seven days the broken window was boarded-up.

May's brother, who did not wish to be named said: "These people are aged between 70 and 90. They're not 25-year-olds. The council is supposed to make sure they are safe. Are we going to have to wait until somebody is killed before anything is done?"

Three weeks ago a cowardly intruder fled from another flat after being kicked by 84-year-old Lucy Owen.

Lucy realised she was being burgled when an intruder, dressed in black, leaned over her while she lay in bed early one morning.

She said: "I got up to go to the toilet then got back in bed. I didn't know anyone was in my home. Then a man leaned over me. I tried to grab the pull cord to call the warden but he snatched it out of my hand."

Lucy got out of bed and hurried to the door where she kicked the intruder.

The pensioner, who walks with the aid of a stick, was forced to hobble to a neighbour's home to raise the alert because the intruder had put

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- all her emergency pull cords out of reach.

She said: "It's a good job I'm a tough old bird. I would have done more if he had stopped longer. But at nights now I cannot sleep, I'm just listening for noises all the time."

Widow Elsie Lunn, aged 80, told how she heard a man coughing in her flat one night and woke to find her kitchen window open, her pension book on the floor and money missing.

A Wigan Council spokesman said: "We regard the safety of the residents as paramount. We are already taking steps to increase security at the home. We have fitted extra security locks on all the downstairs windows and locks on all vulnerable upstairs windows.

'Sickening'

"We are also looking at improving fencing and external lighting."

Cllr Kevin Anderson condemned the break-ins as "sickening" and "atrocious."

"It seems they are being targeted by one or more individuals. They are seen as a target. We are working with the housing department and police to try and resolve the situation and prevent further burglaries."

Det Sgt Bill Nelson of Leigh Police said the sheltered accommodation had been identified as having problems: "A crime reduction advisor visited some of the elderly people and gave them advice. We are actively trying to tackle the problem with regards to these cowards, who are obviously targeting the elderly."