A HEARTLESS distraction burglar whostole hundreds of pounds from pensioners after asking to retrieve a ball from their back gardens wept today as judges added another year and a half to her prison sentence.

MargaretMcCann, 29, of Walnut Avenue, West Drayton, was jailed for three years at Harrow Crown Court in November last year after she admitted two burglaries and asked for another 21 offences to be taken into consideration.

But, afterthe intervention of the Solicitor General, Edward Garnier QC, three senior judges at London's Court of Appeal increased her jail term to four and half years today.

LordJustice Hooper, sitting with Mr Justice King and Judge Warwick McKinnon, said McCann told 75-year-old West Drayton resident, Avis O'Kane, that a ball had gone into her back garden in May last year.

Afterfeigning a search for the ball, McCann grabbed the pensioner's handbag as they passed back through her home. Mrs O'Kane struggled but McCann got away after causing her victim a grazed arm, the court heard.

MrsO'Kane later made a statement saying the incident left her feeling anxious, and she would panic every time the doorbell or telephone rang.

The judge said a maleaccomplice of McCann's had targeted partially-sighted 90-year-old Joyce Miller, in Hayes, in April last year, making off with her bank card after pretending to be a plumber.

CCTVfootage later showed McCann using the card, which was used for a £9,000 spending spree after the burglary, the court heard.

Followingher arrest, McCann admitted her involvement in 13 similar distraction burglaries in Northwood, West Drayton and Uxbridge between February and May last year, as well as four attempted burglaries and four counts of theft.

Many of thoseoffences involved her using a similar ruse of a lost ball, or claiming to have "just moved into the area", to gain access to pensioners' homes - one a 98-year-old woman - before stealing bank cards, cash and jewellery.

McCann, who had32 previous convictions dating back to when she 14-years-old, told a probation officer "a fellow member of the traveller community was holding her in thrall", and she had been mentally ill at the time, the court heard.

DuncanAtkinson, for the Solicitor General, asked judges to increase McCann's sentence to protect the public and send out a message to others who prey on the elderly.

Hetold the court: "Distraction burglaries are more serious than other burglaries because of the impact they have of their victims".

LordJustice Hooper said McCann was a "persistent distraction burglar from whom society needs a break" adding that "vulnerable members of society need particular protection from her".

Healso ruled: "We take the view that the judge was right to take into account the aggravating factors that he mentioned. However, in our view, having taken those factors into account and the guilty plea...he should have ended up with a sentence of four and half years."

McCann wept as she was taken down to the cells.