A MAN just out of prison broke a pensioner’s hip as he robbed him of his gambling winnings.

Sofiene Mehnana attacked 83-year-old Frank Greenwood and took £350 he had won at a bookmakers in Oxford.

The robber had only recently been released from prison for stealing a handbag from a 94-year-old wheelchair user as he pretended to help her into a car in Headington.

He had also used a bank card belonging to an 84-year-old woman that had been stolen in a violent robbery at her home.

He was jailed for those two offences for 21 months in February, but having already served time in custody awaiting sentence was free to rob Mr Greenwood on June 18. At Oxford Crown Court yesterday, Mehnana, of Coleridge Close, Cowley, admitted one count of robbery.

He denied causing Mr Greenwood grievous bodily harm in the incident and prosecutor Jonathan Stone accepted that the guilty plea to robbery encompassed the injuries the victim suffered.

Remanding him in custody to be sentenced on October 7, Recorder Sandeep Kainth noted four aggravating features.

He said: “First, all this was targeted. Secondly, the injuries caused (to Mr Greenwood).

“Thirdly, the victim was clearly vulnerable and fourthly, you were in breach of your licence conditions in light of your last custodial sentence imposed on February 2.”

When Mehnana was arrested for his previous two offences in December he told police: “I don’t care about prison.

“Two years, three years, prison is easy.”

At that time, the court heard the former chef’s offending was motivated by an addiction to heroin.

His then barrister Stephen Parker said Mehnana had come to Britain from France in 1999 and had been a “hard worker” until 2008, when he “fell into company with individuals who were abusing heroin”.

Jailing him in February, Judge Julian Hall said: “The offences were despicable.

“You snatched the bag of somebody who was clearly elderly. You caused her the greatest distress.”