VOTE: Two women target former mayor and run off with purse

Mrs Olliver had 60-70 stolen when two women preyed on her as she

browsed through clothes in a town-centre charity shop.

She said: "The experience has left me shaken. I think it would shake anybody of any age. I feel my life has been attacked. The money that was taken was equal to a week's pension for me.

"I no longer feel comfortable in my home town and I shall always look

very carefully before I go into any shops again.

"What's happened won't stop me shopping, but it has made me a lot

more wary."

The Observer has often reported in the past year about the number of purse thefts which take place in central Bognor and the efforts of the police to stop them and to alert the public to take more care of their belongings.

Mrs Olliver's purse was snatched on Monday morning. Mrs Olliver, 79, of Larch Close, had been to her bank in the town centre and another shop before she decided to look for some vintage clothing in a charity shop.

She went to the clothes rail at the rear of the shop and immediately noticed the two younger women standing nearby.

They swiftly moved to hem her in the narrow space and began to make a show of looking at clothes each of them had picked up off the rail.

"I was the one in the middle and I couldn't get out," she said. "The whole situation was very strange. The two women didn't speak to each other but they were passing clothes across me."

But she thought her purse was safe. She had her handbag between two shopping bags. To get at her purse, the women had to undo the bag's outer flap and a zip.

Mrs Olliver suddenly realised her handbag was undone and her purse was missing as the women left her. She chased after them but they quickly disappeared.

One was about 5ft 3in with dark hair and dark eyes and in her 20s. The other was taller with fair shoulder-length hair. She was probably in her early 30s.

Her purse also contained her bank card, various membership cards and her diary. She reported the crime to the police and stopped her card.

But her purse was found soon after by chance. It was discovered in a recycling bin at the front of the Arun Leisure Centre in Felpham as it was being emptied. Her bank card and diary were inside.

"My only consolation is the women didn't get away with what they probably thought they would," said Mrs Olliver.

"I had placed the money I took out of the bank elsewhere and it was not in my purse. There was no PIN in my diary either for my card."

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