DISTURBANCE
Man is dragged out of home
Residents were woken by the sounds of shouting and clanging metal as three men reportedly armed with a gun, knife and bat battered down a neighbour’s door and dragged him into the street.
The victim, who was reportedly wearing only his underwear, was then beaten in Orchard Place, Maidstone.
A suspected handgun was recovered from the scene of the late-night disturbance and has been sent for testing.
Police were called to the quiet cul-de-sac at 1am last Thursday after reports of an altercation but when they arrived, the raiders had fled.
A woman, who lives in the street but wanted to remain anonymous, said: “We heard metal clanging, loads of shouting in a foreign language, then an English voice shouted: ‘Leave it, come on!’
“When we went out the door there was a metal baseball bat on the ground and a phone had been dropped and the front door had been battered through. There was blood up the wall and door.
“We waited half-an-hour for the police to come, they drove past us once because they couldn’t find the road.
“When they finally walked down and spoke to us and looked around they found a gun near the door and asked us all to go back down the road.
“There was no one around when we came out, the house next door found a knife in his garden.”
She added: “We spoke to the neighbours. A few had been interviewed.
“They are saying three men broke the door down to the house, dragged a man out in his underwear and were hitting him over the head with the bat.
“When the next-door neighbour shouted out the window, the men ran off and the man on the floor went back in the house. We didn’t approach him.”
Police searched a house and seized cannabis.
Two men, aged 27 and 36, from Maidstone, were arrested on suspicion of being involved in the supply of cannabis, but were released, pending investigations.
A cordon remained in place for much of Thursday with officers and dog teams working.
Three vehicles were towed away and several bags of evidence removed from the house.