A VIOLENT robber has admitted holding an elderly woman down and gagging her to steal £20 and a bank card.

Dennis Passingham is facing considerable time behind bars after carrying out the terrifying attack in Berry Lane, Langdon Hills.

Essex Police were called out to the address after an elderly woman was in distress having been robbed.

Passingham, 46, of no fixed address, was arrested 40 minutes after the attack happened at around 9pm on June 6.

Basildon Crown Court heard yesterday that Passingham had threatened the woman with violence, pressed her down to the floor, and gagged her in a bedroom at a home.

Passingham had been so forceful the woman couldn’t breathe for a period of time.

The victim was described as an “elderly lady” who would have “posted no threat whatsoever to him”.

Passingham admitted one count of robbery and one count of fraud by false representation when he appeared dressed in a grey prison issue shirt via a video link from Chelmsford prison.

The court heard Passingham had taken an HSBC bank card and £20 from the woman after the “elongated and long” attack on her, where he used “significant force” to hold her down.

He then tried to pass off as the woman to withdraw hundreds of pounds, but ended up getting caught before he could do so, and has been remanded in custody ever since.

Judge Andrew Hurst said he was so concerned about Passingham’s potential dangerousness that the sentencing has been adjourned until the first week of September for pre-sentence report.

Addressing Passingham, Judge Hurst said: “You have pleaded guilty to an extremely serious offence and a lengthy custodial sentence is inevitable to follow.”