`It will take years to get money back'.

Byline: Alison Walker Crime Correspondent

FRIENDS of thieving pensioner Myrna Flynn say they are worried they may be dead before they ever get back the money she stole from them.

More than a year after being ordered to pay a pounds 3,000 compensation bill to repay the friends she conned, she has coughed up just pounds 140.

The 62-year-old pocketed deposits from a holiday she had organised for 19 women to gamble during trips to the bingo.

And the women she stole from are furious at how slowly the money is being repaid - with some fearing they may not live long enough to get all their cash back.

Flynn, of Trowbridge Green, Trowbridge, Cardiff, was ordered to pay back her debts last June, but by February this year had repaid just pounds 45.

Cardiff magistrates court was told how she was now making regular payments of pounds 5 a week and had repaid a total of pounds 140.

Marie Clarke, 69, of Rumney said: ``I am absolutely fuming - it's going to take years for us to get our money back at this rate.

``I'm going to be 70 in November and I'm afraid that I might not be around long enough to collect all my money.''

Another of Flynn's victims, Marion Blight, said: ``We wrote to the court asking if the payments could be increased, but they have been left at pounds 5 a week.''

Chairman of the bench Mrs Dorothy Jones told Flynn she must continue to make the pounds 5a-week repayments and this would be monitored by the court.

Magistrates imposed a community rehabilitation order on Flynn after she admitted theft in the hearing last June. She was also ordered to pay pounds 2,979 compensation and costs of pounds 55.

CAPTION(S):

THIEVING PENSIONER Convicted Myrna Flynn.