Watch: Pair who robbed 78-year-old woman of bag as she sat in her car after wake are jailed

Two men convicted of robbing a 78-year-old of her handbag as she sat in her car have each been jailed for six years.

Pensioner Ann Green told a jury a man opened her car door, grabbed her bag and thrust her into the dashboard.

Mrs Green said after he made a face through her window and waggled his hands by his ears, she was able to identify him from a police line-up.

Two men denied robbing Ms Green in August last year.

They were Joseph Durban, 30, of Broadlands Drive in Lawrence Weston, and Luke Bowden, 30, of no fixed address.

A jury of six men and six women found them both guilty.

Judge Michael Longman told them: "When she returned with her bag you committed a robbery on her in accordance with a plan.

"You both understood and executed it together. It was completely unnecessary to use any force against her."

Mrs Green recounted how she had been to a wake in Shirehampton when two men in grey tracksuits approached her car in Penpole Lane.

She told Bristol Crown Court she put her car keys in the ignition when suddenly her passenger door opened.

Ms Green said: "A hand reached in and I felt my hair pulled to the left side and I hit the dashboard. He picked up my bag and he threw it to the other.

"He ran off laughing."

Ms Green said before the man who snatched her bag left the scene he made faces and waggled his hands at her through the window.

She described how she got out of her car and ran after the men but they disappeared into nearby woods.

The jury heard her cream leather shoulder bag contained some £250, her driving licence, mobile phone, £400 spectacles, visa debit card and two bank cards.

The pensioner said that, though shaken, she dropped off an urgent package at the post office before driving home. She then cancelled her bank cards and reported what happened to police via the 101 non-emergency line.

Though police turned up promptly and took Ms Green on a high speed area search, the suspects were not initially found.

But the court heard police managed to track down Bowden hours later and Durban the next morning.

Ms Green suffered whiplash injuries in the ordeal.

She didn't go to the doctor's straight away, telling the jury; "I'm not of a generation that goes running to the doctor with every little thing."

She did not ask to give her evidence behind a screen in court and told the jury she identified Bowden from a video ID parade.

Bowden had pleaded guilty to theft.

Both men said they were "100 per cent" not guilty of robbery.