CHRIS WEBBER tells how an 85-year-old great grandmother lives in fear... "HE looked so normal. I'd seen him hanging around the street earlier and he seemed all right. Then me and Doreen were walking along with our frames and he pushed us from behind and sent us flying. He ran off with my bag that had my pension money in. I had money in because I was saving up to pay a bill."

An unremarkable story in Lancaster today you might think. But for great grandmother 85-year-old Isabella Reagan, it was an ordeal that left her shocked and frightened.

"I just couldn't stop shaking yesterday," she said. "But this morning I had a good cry and felt better."

This is the second time Isabella has been the victim of crime on her own quiet and respectable street, Shakespeare Road, on the Vale, Lancaster.

Last time was when Isabella was 80 and a burglar crept in through her bedroom before ransacking the place downstairs.

Isabella got up that night for a glass of milk and is convinced the thief was hiding behind the sofa as she walked through. So upsetting was the experience that she had nightmares. One night she fell out of bed and was found later with her hands above her head - protecting herself. She thought someone had come to attack her. But, with 20 grandkids, 35 grandchildren and a lifetime of getting by, she has bounced back- despite having asthma, a painful cracked rib and needing a walking frame. Isabella laughs easily and has a sharp brain. But she is happiest talking about her huge family brood - of whom she is the well-loved matriarch.

"Is it the drugs they have now that causes it?" she asks. "Years ago you might have got one murder in 20 years. Now they happen all the time. I don't know why they do it."

Now she hopes the police can catch this robber, so she, and other old ladies in the city, can live with a little less fear of attack.

The assailant attacked Isabella and her 67-year-old daughter, Doreen Berry at about 3pm on Sunday, January 18. The thief is described as a white male, 5ft 8ins to 5ft 10ins tall, 25-years-old, pale complexion, weedy appearance, wearing flat dirty fawn coloured flat cap, mid brown short jacket, dark jeans and thick soled shoes.

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