The 76-year-old was injured after she challenged Stuart McCrae, 52, on finding the intruder in the kitchen of her house.

When she tried to stop the convicted thief leaving, McCrae, who was living in homeless accommodation at the time of the incident after losing his tenancy in Clydebank, she alleged the accused shoved her so hard that she landed on the door handle of a unit on the other side of the room.

Following a three-day trial at Dumbarton Sheriff Court, McCrae was acquitted of assaulting the woman at her home in Cardross. A jury did find him guilty of two further charges of being within the property with the intent to commit theft and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

McCrae broke down in tears in the dock as he gave evidence in his defence saying he had panicked when confronted by the “angry” pensioner, claiming that if he pushed her it was accidental as he attempted to flee the scene.

He said: “This has ruined my life, I can’t sleep at night”.

The court heard the pensioner had been in the back garden of her house, which sits in a private lane, with her husband on May 9 this year and had gone inside to check on a cake she was baking when the accused came through the kitchen door from the hall.

When asked what he was doing there he replied that he was looking for bed and breakfast accommodation.

When procurator fiscal depute Fraser Gibson asked the pensioner how hard she had been pushed. She replied: “Hard enough for me to end up nine or 10ft across the room into a kitchen unit door handle.” The pensioner screamed for help and followed McCrae and on hearing her cries her husband came to her aid, as did a neighbour.

McCrae, who was residing at Rosshead House in Alexandria at the time, was seen making off up the drive of a neighbouring house.

Police discovered him a short time later on the platform of Cardross rail station and detained him. They later discovered a black jacket matching the description of one the intruder had been wearing folded up underneath a tree close to the train station.

A jury of 10 men and five women returned a not proven verdict on the assault charge. However, they didn’t believe McCrae’s account that he was following directions given to him by a friend for a B&B, and unanimously found him guilty of the other charges.

Following the verdict it was revealed that McCrae had a lengthy record of convictions for dishonesty and was on early release from a prison sentence imposed in September last year for theft.

The sheriff sentenced McCrae to a further 10 months in custody.