A mother-of-two was today starting a four-year jail sentence for snatching the handbags of women in Wolverhampton.

Karen Fletcher claimed three victims in just six days including a 90-year-old, the city’s Crown Court heard yesterday afternoon.

She struck two months after being freed from a three-year sentence imposed for an identical crime in which a woman shattered a knee cap when dragged along the ground while trying to stop her bag being stolen in Newhampton Road West, Newbridge.

Fletcher, aged 34 of Alnwick Close, Heath Hayes, who has a three-year-old son and a daughter aged 18 months, wept as Judge Michael Challinor declared: “You have been targeting women to fund your drug habit but you show no discrimination in terms of frailty or age. You must have seen that the 90-year-old woman was a frail old lady.”

Prosecutor Mr Darron Whitehead said the offences started on August 29. Fletcher had been released from prison on May 26 on licence after completing 13 months of the three year sentence for robbery.

Sarah-Jayne Buckingham, defending, said: “Fletcher is intelligent but becomes a different woman when her craving for drugs overcomes her.”