Daily Mail

Wife, 56, who fought off a masked gang with samurai sword

- By Chris Brooke

SHE and her husband had bought the samurai sword as an ornament.

But Miriam Carrington told yesterday how she ended up using it as a razor- sharp weapon when masked burglars raided her home.

The 56-year-old, who knew how to hold the 3ft sword only from watching the film Kill Bill, wielded it to such effect that one of the burglars almost bled to death after he grabbed the blade, which sliced into his hands.

A judge backed her actions, saying it was self-defence.

Mrs Carrington and her husband Martin, 52, bought the weapon for £80 on the internet ten years ago because they are interested in Japanese culture.

Mr Carrington took it from the bedroom wall to scare three intruders who demanded the keys to their £40,000 Audi S3 in a 5.30am raid on their home in Shipley, Bradford, in October.

He told his wife to hide in the bathroom and call 999 but instead she pulled the weapon from its sheath and chased the intruders outside as they fled in a bid to delay their escape.

One of the gang, Rehan Malik, 23, suffered a severe wound as he tried to snatch the sword.

‘I was really scared, but had no idea the blade was so sharp and I didn’t think the idiot would grab the blade,’ Mrs Carrington said after Malik was jailed at Bradford

Crown Court. ‘I certainly had never held it as a weapon before.

‘I suppose I just went into crazy mode. I held the blade towards him to stop him moving and then the silly idiot, who was wearing gloves, grabbed the blade with both hands.

‘I then pulled it back towards me and that is when it has sliced through his hands.’

The gang escaped in their own car but instead of going to the local hospital they drove 30 miles to Barnsley, where a nurse told Malik he would have died from blood loss without medical attention.

Mrs Carrington was absolved of any blame for the burglar’s lifechangi­ng injuries by the judge who jailed Malik for three years and eight months.

Judge Jonathan Rose told him: ‘You have no one at all to blame for the injuries to your hands other than yourself.’ The court heard how police caught him after making inquiries at hospitals in the area.

Malik, of Bradford, admitted burglary as well as driving offences relating to an incident in April when he was pursued by police at up to 90mph.

Shufqat Khan, defending, said Malik, who spent five days in hospital, suffered severed nerves in his hands.

‘For now he has lost feeling in both of those hands and there is a possibilit­y that may be for ever,’ he said. Mrs Carrington, who works with her husband for a school broadband provider, said: ‘I was never under any suspicion of using too much force and the police who arrived said immediatel­y that I had acted in self-defence.

‘But I do have a conscience and I don’t think I could have coped if he’d died.’

Mr Carrington said of the sword, which is some 3ft long, 2ft of it blade: ‘We’d never really had it out of the sheath and had never used it to cut anything. We had no idea how sharp it was.’

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 ??  ?? Razor sharp: The 3ft-long samurai sword was bought by Mr and Mrs Carrington as an ornament
Razor sharp: The 3ft-long samurai sword was bought by Mr and Mrs Carrington as an ornament
 ??  ?? Raid: Mrs Carrington and Malik
Raid: Mrs Carrington and Malik

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