A DEFIANT 96-year-old widow vowed she would not be intimidated as she recovered from a mugging that left her battered and bruised.

Eva Huddart had her handbag snatched as she waited at a bus stop near her home.

She said: "What has happened is terrible but I'm determined to let them see I don't care and won't be scared by this.

"I'll still go out and look after myself - that's the way I've been brought up."

Mrs Huddart, from Wallsend, North Tyneside, was waiting at a bus stop in Walkerville, Newcastle, on her way to the shops when the incident happened.

"I was planning on getting some groceries and getting my hair cut so there was about £300 in my purse."

She told how a man waiting at the bus stop knocked her over and grabbed her bag containing cash.

Passers-by heard the pensioners' shouts and rushed to help her.

Speaking from her bed at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary, Mrs Huddart said: "I've had a lucky escape and I'm so grateful to the ten or 12 people who came to my rescue."

Hospital ward manager, Sister Julie Mulroy, who has been looking after the pensioner since she was taken into hospital on Wednesday, said: "She has been remarkably strong and she wants to get home now, which should be very soon."

Detective Inspector Lee Buzzeo said: "The victim suffered a cut to her head and bruising in the incident and she is being monitored, because of her age, in hospital.

* A 17-year-old male has been arrested in connection with the attack. He appeared before Newcastle magistrates on Friday charged with robbery and was remanded in custody