A pregnant mum-of-three has been jailed for a year for her role in a purse-snatch gang who targeted elderly female shoppers in Huddersfield more than five years ago.
Maria Goral, 35, who is now pregnant with a fourth child, was “wanted” by police after she failed to turn up at court back in 2012 and she was only arrested from her home in Amberley Street, Bradford, last month.
Bradford Crown Court heard yesterday (Wednesday) how Goral, who had previous convictions for theft, was part of a gang, which included a 16-year-old girl, who travelled to Huddersfield in January 2012 to target vulnerable victims.
Prosecutor Camille Morland told the court that the gang’s first victim was a 79-year-old woman, who suffered from angina and was distracted while she was shopping in Asda and had her purse containing a few pounds stolen from her bag.
Not long after the thieves committed a similar offence against a 92-year-old shopper as she walked around the Sainsbury’s store.
Miss Morland said the second victim had £120 in her purse and she had felt very nervous after the theft.
The court heard that one of Goral’s accomplices had been locked up for 16 months in October 2012 and the gang had been responsible for six purse thefts from elderly shoppers over a 10-day period.
Goral pleaded last month to a charge of conspiracy to steal on the basis that she was only involved in the two thefts on January 13, 2012.
Although she claimed to have been living in Bradford for the last five years Goral accepted that she had travelled back to Poland for two months in 2014.
Her barrister Philip Standfast said Goral had been “recruited” by the gang at a time when she was short of money and feared being evicted from her home.
Jailing Goral, Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said she had been recruited into “a mean and nasty conspiracy” which involved the deliberate targeting of very elderly and vulnerable people.
The judge said Goral must have “slipped through the net” while she was wanted on a warrant, but the police have eventually found her.
Judge Durham Hall said it was would not be right to suspend the jail term and suggested that Goral would be well looked after while she was in New Hall prison.
