THIS photograph shows Michael and Robert O'Donaghue, two young men cheerly waving goodbye to a pensioner - an 81-year-old who has no idea she has just been robbed of £400.

The brothers have been preying on the elderly across Hampshire and Thames Valley for months and this week they got their comeuppance - 12 years in jail between them. They were finally caught by police surveillance and appeared at Winchester Crown Court on Monday.

Michael O'Donaghue, of Reading, admitted eight offences of conspiracy to burgle. He also confessed to visiting the home of an elderly couple in High Street, Hartley Wintney, on December 11 last year, and telling them he was a council worker looking at car parks near their home. He then began to talk to them about home security.

The court heard how the couple, who are in their 80s, became suspicious when he began talking to them about their jewellery, and asked him to leave. He left empty-handed.

The same day he also targeted an elderly lady in Camberley, and six days later he and his brother Robert stole an 81-year-old lady's £400 Christmas money in Oxford, unaware the police were watching them.

Robert admitted conspiracy to burgle in relation to the Oxford incident alone.

Judge Keith Cutler sentenced Michael to a total of seven years in prison for the conspiracy, two counts of wounding with intent, one of assault and one of possession of an offensive weapon.

Robert received a three-and-a-half year sentence, and a further 18 months to run consecutively, after admitting burgling a house in Reading in 2000.

Det Sgt Dave Powell, of Hampshire Police, said: "Distraction burglary is a callous offence. To trick your way into the homes of frail, elderly and often confused people to steal what little cash they have is the lowest of the low."