A DRUG addict who tricked his way into the homes of “vulnerable” elderly women to steal cash in a string of “terribly mean” burglaries has been jailed for four years.

Lee Eaton, 45, of Ruskin Avenue, Southend, left his victims distressed and anxious after using various ruses to get into their sheltered accommodation blocks.

He also conned a male dementia sufferer out of £80 and stole and his wallet in a pub.

The heroin user appeared at Basildon Crown Court yesterday after admitting four burglaries, three thefts and handling stolen goods at previous hearings.

The court heard how Eaton met the elderly man outside the Guildford pub in Sutton Road, Southend, on May 8 last year.

He promised him £80 worth of tobacco but simply walked off with the cash and on June 3 returned to the pub and swiped his wallet from a table.

However, Eaton’s more serious offences were reserved for elderly women in their own homes.

He tricked his way into Martins Court, in Westcliff, on September 4 by telling a resident - who was returning home from a shopping trip - that his mother had recently moved in and he was visiting.

Once in the hallway, he took her purse from the top of her trolley, making off with just £5.

He returned to the same complex on October 19, again telling a resident he was looking for his mother before stealing a purse from a woman’s flat.

On October 23, Eaton called at a flat in Dickens Close, Southend, and asked a woman for a glass of water.

As she went to fetch him a drink he followed her into the kitchen and stole her purse.

Allan Compton, prosecuting, said: “She says she sat down and cried her eyes out. She says she lays in bed thinking about it at night.”

Eaton carried out a similar offence in the company of a young woman in Chestnut Grove, Southend, on November 29.

This time, they told the resident their car had broken down and they needed to use the phone.

Mr Compton said the victim in that case “could still see him standing in her kitchen.”

Jailing Eaton for a total of four years, Judge David Owen-Jones said the offences had been “terribly mean”.

He said: “All these victims were extremely distressed and upset, not only about what they had lost but the way they had been tricked.

“These were relatively elderly people and were, in my judgment, vulnerable.”

Eaton appeared in the dock with former girlfriend Danielle Mills, 34, also of Ruskin Avenue, who had admitted one charge of handling stolen goods, the theft of a £165 mirror from a shop in Southend and possession of a small amount of heroin.

She was given a 12 month community order.