A HOMELESS man who committed a series of five robberies against lone women in the West Ealing area was jailed yesterday for a total of 15 and a half years after earlier pleading guilty.

Offences started in June last year and a pattern was identified by detectives in Ealing’s Robbery Unit, who launched an operation to identify and arrest the attacker.

Hours after his fifth attack in June, Amir Aden, 29, also known as Amir Amir, was stopped and arrested after being recognised from CCTV images and descriptions provided by witnesses.

A body search and a subsequent premises search recovered the vast majority of the property stolen from his victims.

Aden’s spate of attacks had become more and more violent, with one victim sustaining a cracked cheekbone. He pleaded guilty to all counts of robbery. However, he did not plead guilty to causing this injury until the morning of his trial.

Aden will spend a minimum of two thirds of his sentence in custody and can only be released early on licence once the parole board considers he is no longer dangerous.

Even after release he will spend an additional three years on licence, being closely supervised.

Det Con Michael Currie, of Ealing Robbery Unit, said: "Aden is clearly a dangerous man and one that we, as a team, wanted to take off the streets as soon as the scale of his offending became clear. I am relieved we were able to do that quickly.”