Criminal's mother 'died ashamed of him' as 'everyone in

A cowardly thief who robbed a vulnerable woman was told that his late mother ‘died ashamed’ of him.

Mark Schofield attacked the 67-year-old, who was walking to the shops with the aid of a walking stick, from behind. He wrestled her handbag from her before running away.

The woman was seriously hurt, suffering fractures to her knee, shoulder and ankle. Drug addict Schofield, 38, also burgled two flats in a living complex for the elderly where his mother lived. Manchester Crown Court heard that before her death, she had requested a restraining order from the court to prevent Schofield visiting her.

In a statement, she said: “Mark’s behaviour makes me feel embarrassed. I know that everyone in my block of flats is talking about me. Mark’s behaviour makes me feel ashamed and disappointed.”

Before locking him up for more than five years, Judge Nicholas Dean KC told Schofield: “Very sadly I’m told that your mother has now died. It seems to me in a sense she has been a victim of your offending.

“It seems to me that you will have to live for the rest of your life in the knowledge that your mother, when she died, was ashamed of you. She wanted a restraining order so that you didn’t come back to see her. She died ashamed of you.”

Schofield was caught on CCTV fleeing the area -Credit:GMP

Prosecuting, Craig Macgregor told how the victim was walking to the shops along Clayton Hall Road in Clayton, east Manchester, in the early afternoon on February 9 last year. Schofield walked at a pace from behind and struck, grabbing her handbag.

She tried to resist and fell, before Schofield ran away with the bag. Her son gave chase but lost sight of him. The handbag was recovered nearby.

The woman was rushed to hospital and required surgery. She spent five weeks in hospital in total.

Mr MacGregor said of the woman: “She has never felt unsafe in Clayton in the 20 years she has lived there, until this incident. She believes there are good people out there, and will not let what this defendant did to her change her outlook, otherwise this defendant would have won.

“People have indirectly offered to harm this defendant for what he did, but she wants things to be done in the right way, in this court.” Mr MacGregor also told how a few weeks earlier, on January 21 last year, and on the day after the robbery, Schofield carried out burglaries at two flats with a residential complex for the elderly.

It was the same residential building where his mother lived. Both victims knew Schofield, and one had even given money to him in pity after telling him that he was homeless.

Schofield stole a laptop, bottles of wine and a Ring camera in the first break-in, and £700 in the second incident. Defending, Naomi Duckworth said Schofield’s crimes were ‘impulsive’ and ‘opportunistic’.

She claimed that he had been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder following ‘trauma’ as a child, which had been rekindled after ‘bumping’ into someone from that period of his life.

But Judge Dean said he believed Schofield’s crimes had ‘everything to do with drugs and nothing to do with PTSD’. He said that Schofield was committing crime to fund his drug addiction.

Schofield, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to robbery and two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.

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