Foreign women targeted shopper

Two Bulgarian women travelled to Cork last week to target elderly women shopping alone in supermarkets, it was claimed in court yesterday as they were convicted of one such crime.

Donka Ilieva, aged 43, and her niece, Ettima Ivanova, aged 19, of no fixed address in Ireland, yesterday pleaded guilty to stealing a handbag from the trolley of an elderly woman at Tesco in Douglas at 5pm on Saturday, March 7.

They claimed, through solicitor Elaine O’Sullivan, who represented them on free legal aid, that they came into Cork by boat on Friday on the promise of washing-up jobs in a restaurant.