It could hardly be worse. Mohamed A. (46 years old) always chooses his victims by targeting elderly, handicapped women and quickly stealing their handbag and purse from their walker.
The cocaine-addicted family man (four failed detox therapies in 15 years) has 18 previous convictions, mostly for theft.
Most recently he stole from Wilma S. (88 years old) from the Bornheim district of Frankfurt after she had gone shopping in the stairwell. Stole 50 euros cash from her purse, then cashed out 200 euros using her EC card. “That’s a lot of money for me. I only get a small pension,” said Wilma S, looking pleasingly spry on the witness stand.Although A., who confessed and showed remorse, returned the 250 euros to the senior citizen in the courtroom via his lawyer Ivo Hänel. But the court of lay assessors presided over by Eva-Maria Livesey-Wardle did not grant leniency at Christmas: the sentence was three years and four months imprisonment.Public prosecutor Asim Khan had called for three and a half years’ imprisonment. He considered A.’s theft scheme to be “one of the shabbiest things you can do”.