Irish OAP fights off masked intruders with billiard cue
AN 84-year-old Irishman who kept a billiard cue by his bed after he was burgled, ‘rammed’ it into in the face of one intruder and used it to fend off another.
Cork native Michael Ring, who now lives in England, suffered fractured discs in his spine, a black eye and bruising on the brain after tackling the masked men.
In the early hours of August 10 last year, Mr Ring was asleep downstairs at his home in Ashburnham Road in Luton when the men broke in through his conservatory, Luton crown court heard. In the witness box Mr Ring, 85, said: ‘My granddaughter stayed with me that night – she stayed with me because I had been broken into.’
His wife died in April 2017 and two months later, he was burgled and £500 was taken from his wallet along with much of his late wife’s jewellery. After that break-in, his son-in-law fitted an alarm and CCTV.
Mr Ring, said he woke at 5am on August 10 to use the toilet and was awake in bed when he heard a noise.
‘I got out of bed. The nearest thing I could see was a billiard cue. I kept it near the bed because I expected the thieves to come back again.
‘I pulled back the curtain (in the living room) and I saw two gentlemen in the conservatory.
‘There was a bolt holding the doors and they were having difficulty trying to get in.’
He said he saw one, a white man, alleged to be Roderick McDonald, working on the bottom of the door and another man, who was black man, alleged to be Stephen Simons, watching him. He said he ‘rammed’ the billiard cue in the face of the white man saying: ‘He fell backwards and I thought they would disappear, but the coloured chap jumped over the first man and yanked the door. It opened and... He came in to do battle. I hit him with the billiard cue a couple of times.’
Mr Ring said the black man ran out of the front of the house and the white man escaped by the way he came in. His granddaughter Emma had phone the police.
Roderick McDonald, 52, of Luxembourg Close, Luton, and Stephen Simons, 44, of Brook Street, Luton, deny aggravated burglary and causing grievous bodily harm to Michael Ring on August 10 last year.