A DRUG addict who exploited and intimidated a vulnerable man by making repeated requests for cash tried to get her victim to retract his statement to police.

April Carter, 27, was locked up for 16 weeks and hit with a restraining order in November 2019 for harassing a 67-year-old vulnerable man.

Fresh out of prison in January and still on licence, she approached the man again and asked him for money.

He handed over £90 and again gave her £70 in cash the following day.

Carter repeatedly paid her victim visits in February and March, asking for cash and urging him to withdraw the money when he didn’t have it to hand.

On one occasion, she persuaded him to sell his phone at Cash Converters in order to follow through on her request.

On another, she told him to ask a neighbour for money.

The court heard the victim had been caused “significant distress” by the repeated approaches and requests for money.

She was arrested for breaching her restraining order, but while on bail continued to visit her victim.

She tried to persuade him to withdraw his statement, telling him she would go to prison and allowing him to use her mobile phone to call the police.

In February, she targeted another vulnerable adult, aged 63, who is partially-sighted and has learning difficulties.

This time, she pushed the door open and shoved her way past her victim, Ipswich Crown Court heard.

She closed the door behind her and asked the vulnerable man for cash.

When he said he had no cash to give, she swiped a bank card from his home and later tried to use it at a shop.

Carter, of Mulberry Avenue, Colchester, admitted two breaches of a restraining order, witness intimidation, burglary and fraud.

Gavin Burrell, mitigating, said Carter had had a troubled upbringing, with both of her parents suffering with an addiction. He said she had long suffered with drug addiction and had been sexually abused.

Recorder William Hansen imposed a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.