A FRAUDSTER who fleeced an old lady out of £500 in a cash machine scam has been spared a jail term.

Abdul Hassan, 26, was part of a gang who targeted the elderly and flustered them so they could pinch their bank cards.

And within seconds of getting his hands on the plastic Hassan had withdrawn £500 from the 77-year-old's account.

But he was caught after the pensioner, who had just reported what had taken place upstairs at Lloyds in Regent Street, saw him getting into a car and driving off.

She passed the registration to police and it was found he had been involved in a similar scam in Bristol earlier that day, Swindon Crown Court was told.

The woman had been using the cash point when Hassan appeared next to her and held a piece of paper in front of her, telling her the machine wasn't working.

Because she hadn't pressed any buttons for a period of time her card was ejected, but she did not see it as the piece of paper was in the way and the fraudster grabbed it.

When she went into the bank to report her card being withheld she was told the man she had spoken to didn't work there and it must be a scam.

While she was doing that the scammers, who had spotted her keying in her PIN number, plundered £500 from her account.

And when he was questioned he admitted carrying out a similar scam four months earlier where he got £200 from a 63-year-old's account.

But after a judge heard Hassan was on suspended sentences for doing the same thing in Bristol and Cambridge he said it would be wrong to jail him.

Claire Marlow, prosecuting, said the other offences all took place before the Swindon matters, so he had not breached the terms of the suspended sentences.

Hassan, of West Ham, London, admitted theft in November 2012 and theft and fraud in March 2013.

In October 2013 at Cambridge Crown Court he was jailed for a year, suspended for two, with drug rehabilitation, and a month later received a similar sentence in Bristol.

He had carried out an almost identical scam targeting bank users in their seventies netting more than £1,000.

Stephen McCaffrey, defending, said his client had been a crack addict for many years but he had now been clean of the drug for 23 months.

He said he was working part time in Tesco and also going to college as he sought to turn his back on crime.

Passing sentence Recorder John Trevaskis said: "You are still a relatively young man at 26. You have an unattractive record of previous convictions dating back to a very young age.

"It is clear from the record and presentence report that drugs have played a major part in your record.

"I am pleased to read you have previously undertaken a drug rehabilitation requirement and completed that successfully and you tell me now today that you are clean of crack cocaine and have been for almost two years.

"This is an opportunity today to make a fresh start."

He imposed a nine month jail term suspended for 18 months and ordered he complete a thinking skills programme and pay a £100 surcharge.