AN 85-year-old man was left terrified and covered in blood after a brutal attack by a young woman he had known since she was a baby and her accomplice in a violent robbery.

Edwin Powell answered the door at his home in Merthyr Road, Abergavenny to be confronted by stranger, Anthony Vlahos, 28, who demanded clothes belonging to his accomplice, Katherine Pitt 35.

Mr Powell, who has died from unconnected causes since the attack, had known her all of her life but the relationship had turned sour when she had stolen from him.

While telling Vlahos that there were no belongings of Pitt on the premises, he heard her hiding near the door, shouting ‘Get him, get him’.

In the attack that followed, Vlahos and Pitt pushed the frail pensioner to the floor punching and kicking him. Pitt then went upstairs in the property before demanding the keys to Mr Powell’s Land Rover Discovery.

Prosecuting counsel, Alex Greenwood, told the sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court that Mr Powell, ‘Felt unable to resist and was fearful of a further attack.’ He was kicked while on the floor in his back and felt pain in his kidneys.

The pair made off with a bank card, laptop, mobile phone, cash, and Mr Powell’s vehicle after threatening him that he ’Would be gotten’ if he called the police.

Mr Powell made it to a neighbours home and was subsequently taken to Nevill Hall Hospital. His vehicle was spotted and stopped by police shortly afterwards, being driven by Pitt who was three and a half times over the drink-drive limit.

The court heard that Mr Powell had known Pitt since she was a baby, and had always thought of her as a friend.

She would call on him occasionally, but several weeks prior to the incident, there had been a dispute and he had sent for the police after she refused to leave his house.

When arrested Vlahos told the police that his partner, Pitt, had made him do it, threatening to abort their unborn child if he refused to go along with the robbery plan.

Vlahos was also sentenced for possessing a bladed article in a public place after being found carrying a knife in Abergavenny in January.

He was further charged with three breaches of the conditions of a sexual harm prevention order.

Katherine Pitt was in breach of a suspended sentence following theft and fraud convictions. In defence of Pitt, Andrew Jones told the court that she had come to fully recognise that the robbery was an ‘appalling incident’.

The court was told that Pitt is alcohol dependent but realised that ’In the cold light of day, she can see how appalling her behaviour was’.

Ben Waters, defending Vlahos, told the court his client’s behaviour had been ‘awful and abhorrent’.

The judge, recorder Nicholas Gareth Jones, told the pair he had no doubt the robbery had been planned, and was carried out against a ‘Vulnerable gentleman of 85.’

Vlahos was sentenced to a total of seven years and three months in prison, and Pitt to a total of seven years and two months.