‘He told me he’d cut off my hands’
THE trial of Patrick and Philip Roche, for aggravated burglary and false imprisonment at the Creed home, heard statements given to gardaí by Willie Creed, 79, and his sisters Chrissie, 77, and Nora, 72.
In a statement read to the court, Mr Creed told gardaí that the gang ‘rushed’ at him, knocking the pensioner to the ground.
‘He was stabbing me on the head with a screwdriver,’ Mr Creed told gardaí. ‘There was blood running down along my face.’
He said the gang threatened the siblings that their ‘throats would be cut’ if they didn’t hand over cash. The Creeds told gardaí the burglars were masked and armed with a butcher’s knife, a screwdriver, sticks, and iron bars.
Mr Creed said: ‘They told us they would cut our throats. One of them said he’d cut off my hands.’
He said one of the raiders ‘slashed’ him on the arm and told him, ‘We’re high on drugs and we can get real violent.’
Chrissie Creed, 77, told gardaí she was praying in her bedroom when she heard Nora ‘screaming’. Chrissie said when she came out of her bedroom she saw ‘two men standing over [Nora], and Willie had blood on his head’.
Chrissie said she tried to telephone her brother Tommy, but before she could dial for help, one of the raiders grabbed the phone from her. She said: ‘He laid into me, hitting me. He threw me across the room. I thought they were going to kill us.’
Nora Creed, 72, told gardaí she had opened the front door and saw two men dressed in black standing in front of her. She said she was ‘punched backwards’ on to a nearby window and tied up.
After the gang fled, Mr Creed managed to free himself and his sisters and raise the alarm.
Their brother Tommy Creed, 74, told the trial that he later arrived at his siblings’ house to find a scene of ‘mayhem’.
He said Willie, Nora, and Chrissie were ‘in the kitchen covered in blood’.