Frail OAP says he 'feels sorry' for the man who robbed him

Drug user Elroy McArthur, 32, was jailed for five years on Friday after assaulting John Purves, who was aged 90 at the time of the attack.

McArthur started speaking to Mr Purves at the stair door to the block of flats where the pensioner lives on Lorne Street in July last year, before reaching into his trouser pocket and trying to steal his wallet.

Mr Purves, now 91, was pushed and fell to the pavement, with McArthur escaping with the wallet, which contained only 20.

McArthur was caught after a passer-by saw the attack and followed him until police arrived.

Mr Purves fractured his ribs and right shoulder in the fall, and was taken to the Royal Infirmary but was too frail to operate on. He remained in hospital until September last year.

However, Mr Purves, who never married and has no children, said he felt sorry for his attacker.

"I feel sorry for the man who did that to me," he said. "I wasn't frightened at all, I felt more sorry for him than I did myself.

"Imagine a 32-year-old man in the prime of his life doing that to get money. There must be something wrong with him.

"If you ever have a weak link that you can't control, you can understand why that man did these things. It's a shame for him."

Mr Purves was a leading seaman in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, and fulfilled the same role for the Royal New Zealand Navy, with which he served in the Korean War.

He said: "I had seven years of war between the last war and the Korean War. I saw a lot of action in the Mediterranean.

"The worst thing you could do in the navy was be frightened. I got a few frights and I get nightmares still. You don't forget planes crashing into the sea."

The frail pensioner, who walks with a stick, still suffers pain in his shoulder and has been less mobile since the robbery.

"The doctor said it will take a long time for my shoulder to heal and it's still bothering me," he said.

Lord Kinclaven, who sentenced McArthur at the High Court in Edinburgh, said Mr Purves' quality of life had been "severely diminished".

Nine days before attacking Mr Purves, McArthur attacked a 19-year-old shop worker, Lucette Woods, at a branch of RS McColl in Edinburgh's West Maitland Street, brandishing a knife at her and stealing 159.

McArthur, who has a lengthy criminal record for theft and burglary, committed both of the offences while on bail.

George Pollock, defending, said McArthur did not intend to injure Mr Purves.

Mr Purves, who worked at a brewery in the Capital for 22 years after his time in the navy, fell in his flat and fractured his other shoulder four months before the robbery.

Commenting on McArthur's five-year sentence, he said: "I thought he would have got that, not because of what he did to me but to go into a shop and present a knife at the shop worker, he must have been a right desperate character.

"It wasn't the man's fault, he couldn't help it. That was his weak link – and we have all got a weak link."