A MUGGER who preyed on the elderly and killed a 78-year-old woman for just £26 has been jailed for life.

Darren Stanger, aged 39, attacked Winnie Hill, in Haig Road, Biggin Hill, as she was unloading shopping for her friend May Dennis, 98, who was sitting in the car.

Stanger opened the car door, put his hand through and grabbed her handbag.

Miss Hill, who was 5ft 3in, grabbed his right arm to stop him but 6ft 4in tall Stanger threw her to the ground, fracturing her skull.

Stanger, who had been released from another robbery sentence a month before, jumped into a car with an accomplice and drove off.

He rifled through her handbag, took the £26 and tossed the handbag into a hedge.

Former bakery worker Miss Hill was rushed to intensive care at Princess Royal University Hospital and died two days after the attack on June 28 last year.

Stanger, of Downham Way, Downham, who had admitted manslaughter and robbery at an earlier hearing in December, was handed his life sentence at the Old Bailey, yesterday.

Sentencing him, Judge Brian Barker said: "To target elderly and vulnerable people is despicable.

"You are responsible for a devastating loss to this lady's family and the community.

"She was a fine lady who devoted herself to others and all you thought about was yourself."

Stanger, who was described by his solicitor Nicholas Price as a hopeless drug addict who now looks back on his lifestyle with disgust, began robbing pensioners in 1984.

In October, 2001, he was jailed for 42 months for punching an elderly disabled woman in the back and breaking her hip and arm as he tried to wrestle her handbag from her.

In November, 2004, he was jailed for four months by west Kent magistrates for theft and breach of his robbery licence.

Prosecutor Edward Brown said: "The fact she was a frail and elderly lady was the reason the defendant chose her as his victim.

"Miss Hill displayed her dedication later in life, caring for the elderly."

She helped set up day care centres for the elderly in Biggin Hill.

Speaking outside court, her nephew Dennis Magee said: "She was there for anyone in need, irrespective of what situation they were in."

He says his aunt had studied some criminal law and would have understood the importance of paying a debt to society.

Mr Magee, who lives near Miss Hill's sister in Lochgelly, Fife, Scotland, added: "It would be a fitting epitaph to her if we saw a lifestyle changed and a community made safer for everyone to live in because of it."