Shotgun ordeal of widow, 76

(First Edition)

A WIDOW aged 76 was held up by a robber wearing a rubber mask and carrying a sawn-off shotgun yesterday.

The man tied Janet Reynolds to a chair after she found him rifling through drawers in the kitchen of her home in Great Chart, near Ashford in Kent.

He shouted obscenities after finding no money and, with the shotgun held to her head, forced her to walk from room to room gathering small amounts of change. He then escaped across neighbouring gardens.

A police spokesman said: 'This was a despicable attack on a defenceless old lady. She is a plucky character although she was left in shock by what happened. It takes a very evil person to point a sawn-off shotgun to an old woman's head and we are pulling out all the stops to get this character.'

The raider is described as about 5ft 7in (1.7m) tall, heavily built and was wearing a combat jacket.