Joan Ursula Craddock
1921 – 2004
Wanstead, East London
Joan Ursula Craddock, an 82-year-old great-grandmother living in Wanstead, east London, was mugged and fatally injured on the morning of 8 April 2004.
She had just collected £100 in benefits from the Post Office and was walking along Halstead Road, near her home where she lived with her son Derek, when a man knocked her to the ground while snatching her handbag. He then returned to take her bus pass as she lay injured.
Joan suffered a fractured leg (or hip) and shoulder, was taken to Whipps Cross Hospital, and died nearly three weeks later on 27 April from acute peritonitis caused by the injuries.
Her son David described her as a strong, independent woman who walked with a stick but wasn’t frail, and expressed heartbreak that “it’s my mum this time but next time it could be somebody else’s.”
The attacker was described as a black man around 5ft 9ins tall; the murder remains unsolved, with no one ever convicted. This case was treated as murder by police and linked to other street robberies in the area.
Rest in peace Joan. You will not be forgotten.