Alleged Thief Bashed Old Woman
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday July 16, 2002
``I wouldn't hurt you for the world, you can trust me," police claim a woman said to a pensioner as she was let into the elderly woman's Nowra home in April.
Minutes later, police allege, Christine Brown attacked the 73-year-old, continually striking her with a bag, causing wounds so severe that she would later lose her right eye.
The Wreck Bay woman, who was arrested at Shoalhaven Hospital on the weekend, was not required to enter a plea yesterday to a charge of aggravated robbery with wounding after stealing $45 from the 73-year-old woman's purse and money box.
The alleged victim had been watching television in her nursing home unit on April 19, when Brown had knocked on her front door and asked for help in locating her grandfather, whom she said lived at the complex.
The elderly woman was cautious at first, but after requests to use her phone were denied, Brown, a 41-year-old student, began to cry.
``She felt sorry for her and let the female into her unit," police said.
Brown had used the woman's telephone and then asked to make another call to the NRMA, because she was having car trouble.
As the victim searched for the NRMA telephone number, Brown had said she wanted to use the toilet and walked to the back of the unit, where the woman later found her in a bedroom.
When they returned to the lounge, police said Brown had pretended to make a telephone call to the NRMA.
Afterwards, she had sat down and began to eat a pie, asking the elderly woman about Nowra accommodation.
When she was told she could not stay at the unit and was asked to leave, Brown had said: ``You've got to be joking" and allegedly picked up a bag, striking the victim to the right eye. She had fallen to the floor, where Brown continued to punch her and attack her with the bag, the court heard.
When Brown searched the woman's purse, she had demanded to know where her credit cards and PINs were kept.
``I'm serious, I'll kill you. Where is it?" it is claimed she had yelled at the woman.
As she had left the unit with $25 in cash and $20 in coins, Brown had again allegedly threatened the victim.
``If you move, I will come back and kill you," it is claimed she said.
After Brown was gone the elderly woman had managed to lock the door and call an ambulance.
She spent several months in hospital, where she was treated for facial fractures.
The court heard Brown had been arrested after fingerprint evidence left at the scene identified her.
In applying for bail, Brown's solicitor Mark Douglass told the court his client had strong family ties in the Nowra area and suffered from a medical condition.
But Magistrate Doug Dick refused Brown bail for the protection of the community and on the strength, he said, of the prosecution case.
The matter was adjourned for further mention on August 6.
© 2002 Illawarra Mercury
