My knife is bigger ..leave or you’ll be sorry
Coroner rules burglar was ‘lawfully killed’ by terrified pensioner, 78
A PENSIONER brandished a 12in kitchen knife at a raider armed with a screwdriver, telling him: “Mine’s bigger than yours.”
Richard Osborn-Brooks, then 78, keen to protect his frail wife in their home, told Henry Vincent, 37: “If you don’t leave you’ll be sorry,” before fatally stabbing him.
A coroner ruled Vincent was lawfully killed, adding: “It was in self-defence.”
A PENSIONER who fatally stabbed a burglar during a midnight raid on his home has said his only thought was to protect his frail wife.
Terrified Richard Osborn-Brooks, then aged 78, stabbed raider Henry Vincent in the chest as the intruder lunged at him with a screwdriver.
Vincent and an accomplice forced their way into the retired RAC manager’s home after he answered the door to calls for help, an inquest heard in details made public for the first time.
Vincent, 37, who had taken cocaine and heroin, rushed upstairs where Mr Osborn-Brooks’ poorly wife Maureen was, while the accomplice pushed the pensioner into the kitchen.
Quick-thinking Mr Osborn-Brooks pretended to reach for his heart medication and instead grabbed a 12in kitchen knife before chasing the accomplice outside, the coroner was told.
He held the knife at head height in a fencing move he had learned in the Army. The pensioner later told police: “I said to him, ‘Get out of my house, you b ***** d, or it will be the worse for you’.
“It was purely a threatening move – I didn’t intend to stab him with it.
“I just thought he would get out of the house if I showed him I had a weapon.”
On his way out the accomplice called up to Vincent: “Get out quick, he’s got a knife.” The OAP told police after the incident: “[He] came running down the stairs with a sharp implement. Afterwards I realised it was a screwdriver.
“He said, ‘Come near me and I’ll stick you’. I said, ‘Well mine’s bigger than yours’, and I stabbed him about there. It went in about four inches.”
He later added: “He came towards me with the screwdriver and I just put the knife forward and he went into it.”
Giving evidence via audio-link, Mr Osborn-Brooks told the inquest Vincent had lunged at him and he was “surprised” the knife had pierced his chest, adding it went in and out “easily”.
He told the coroner: “I was just showing him that the knife I had was actually bigger than the screwdriver. I thought he would run out of the front door, which was open.
“My intention was to get him out of the house and away from my wife.”
Vincent collapsed after fleeing the property in Hither Green, South East London, and died hours later in hospital.
His mother Rose Lee told the inquest in Southwark, South London: “Why couldn’t that gentleman have just
stepped back like a normal person would have?” Police decided not to press murder charges, citing self-defence laws.
But the pensioner and his wife Maureen, who has debilitating arthritis, have never been able to return to their home amid fears of reprisal attacks.
The boarded-up semi became a flashpoint for tensions in the aftermath of the raid last April, with a shrine to the burglar being repeatedly torn down by angry supporters of Mr Osborn-Brooks.
Recording a verdict of lawful killing yesterday, senior coroner Andrew Harris said he had used moderate “proportionate” force.
He added: “The householder stabbed Mr Vincent in his own home...after he and another intruder had threatened him in an attempted burglary.
“The interaction that led to the stabbing was the simultaneous approach of the deceased with a small screwdriver and the forward movement of the householder with a kitchen knife.
“The householder was terrified and asserted he acted in self-defence after an assault by the other intruder.”
A statement read by Mr OsbornBrooks’ lawyer after the ruling said: “[He] nevertheless regrets Mr Vincent’s loss of life in what were tragic circumstances.”
I just thought he would get out of the house if I showed him I had a weapon RICHARD OSBORN-BROOKS ON RAISING KNIFE TO RAIDER