IN nearly eight years of journalism, few cases have affected me quite so much as that of Dorothy Anderton.

That she strikes a resemblance to my own late grandmother could have something to do with it - but take that element away and it still makes my bones shake with anger.

It was one of the last crimes I covered as a reporter and the anger I felt then is still with me to this day.

I suppose the real tragedy is that it's not hard to contemplate the kind of person who could do it: who could knock a frail old woman over and take her handbag, not caring if she's dead or alive but more worried about how much she had on her?

I've seen them trudge through court week in, week out, and they could not care less. It seems that life is enough of a chore already to care what other people think, let alone what effect they have on others.

Well, let me spell it out to you: You broke her wrist and her hip. But you couldn't have cared less.

Her handbag contained the money she had spent months saving to pay for a new set of dentures. But you robbed her of it and probably spent it on drugs, a few hits that kept you going for the week.

She was just a few steps away from her home. You left her so scared of leaving her door again that she instead spent her last birthday in hospital, battered and badly bruised.

You not only robbed her of her savings, but also of her faith in society; of her faith in life.

Once she went into hospital, she never came out again. And that's what should happen to you when they lock you up.

You are spineless flotsam.

As unsolved murders go, this is not the most sensational or scandalous - but it is the one that every single person can connect with.

Everyone has a mother, most of us still have grandparents; everyone knows a Dorothy Anderton'.

Even her attacker. But I wouldn't be surprised if their parents denied they existed.

Imagine living a full life to the age of 87, working hard all your life to make ends meet only for some smackhead to come along and knock you for six just so he can take away the pain and stress of his oh-so-unfair life.

Someone out there has a conscience.

Someone knows who did this.

Someone knows it could have been their mother.

Someone knows it could yet be them in years to come.

So do something about it: 0800 555 111.

jsawyer@guardiangrp.co.uk