A pensioner was forced against the wall by a woman as two accomplices rushed upstairs and burgled her son’s bedroom.

The victim, a 72-year-old woman who had lived in her semi-detached home in Bowyer Road, Abingdon, for two-and-a-half decades without incident, received a knock at her door at 3pm on March 24, 2020.

Fiona Green was on the doorstep with two men and told the homeowner ‘I want to have a word with you’ before stepping inside and pushing her against the wall. The woman eventually managed to break free and run into the garden, calling for help.

READ MORE: Elderly woman burgled in her Abingdon home

In a victim personal statement read by prosecutor Oliver Wellings, she said the surprise raid had left her ‘shocked and scared’. “I have never had anything like this happen in my whole life.”

Of the three people involved in the terrifying burglary, only Green appeared in the dock at Oxford Crown Court this week. The 56-year-old was identified from CCTV footage in Abingdon town centre in the wake of the crime, which showed her in the company of her two accomplices.

The court heard that one of the two men involved in the burglary was Green’s then partner, Mark Quinn, with whom she was trapped in what was labelled a controlling and coercive relationship.

The authorities had been so worried about that relationship they had previously convened a ‘multi-agency’ safeguarding meeting, Green’s barrister Kellie Enever said. She was regarded as a high-risk domestic violence victim and at ‘high risk of serious harm and homicide’.

Green, who also had a history of anxiety, depression and alcoholism, was said to feel ‘ashamed and embarrassed’ about what she had done.

Ms Enever accepted the unpleasantness of the burglary, but asked the judge to impose a community order or suspended sentence as an alternative to an immediate prison sentence.

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The judge refused. Jailing her for 12 months, Judge Nigel Daly said he had reduced the ‘starting point’ for the offence in the Sentencing Council’s guidelines to take account of the fact Green had been ‘under some significant pressure’ to take part in the burglary.

“The fact remains that you, together with two men, went to an elderly lady’s house, forced your way in, forced her against the wall so the two men could rush into her house and burgle it,” he said.

“That, I am afraid, is the nature of an offence which requires an immediate custodial sentence. Under normal circumstances, but for that I have already set out, you would be looking at several years’ imprisonment.”

Green, of Southmoor Way, Abingdon, pleaded guilty on the day of her trial to a single offence of burglary. She admitted the offence on a basis.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward