Armed robbery couple reveal health ordeal
PARTNER OF MAN WHO FOUGHT OFF GANG TELLS OF HEALTH PROBLEMS
THE wife of a man who fought off four armed burglars at his home has revealed she is battling cancer.
Charlotte Ali opened up about her health problems during an interview on Good Morning Britain about the vicious attack, which saw her husband Asif fight off the burglars with his bare fists in order to protect her at their Rochdale home.
The 30-year-old said she is currently having operations to remove cancer, and had gone to bed early on the night of the attack to rest.
Charlotte said: “At the moment I am undergoing some operations to remove cancer, so that’s the reason I wasn’t feeling too great that night.
“I said to Asif, I’ll go upstairs and watch a bit of Netflix and I’d fallen asleep.”
Asif and Charlotte were alerted to the break-in after the couple’s dogs began barking ferociously at around 9.15pm.
“Winnie the bulldog only barks if there’s something going on so when I woke up to hear that, I thought, what is going on?” she said.
“I quickly got my dressing gown on and by the time I got to the top of the stairs, looked down and I could see what was going on. I just heard Asif shout ‘phone the police and barricade yourself in.’”
CCTV footage of attack shows the brave estate agent landing several punches on one man, before taking on more thugs.
Asif, 35, told the GMB hosts that ‘instinct kicked in’ and all he could think about was protecting his wife Charlotte, who was asleep upstairs.
He said: “I knew Charlotte was upstairs so the instinct kicked in to protect my wife.
“I flew into the second person. I knew if they were going to get past me they were going to get to my wife.
“If there was 100, as long as my wife is upstairs, there was no one going to get through me.”
After being forced into the garden, one of the men threatened to kill Asif before going back inside wielding what is believed to be a screwdriver.
But quick-thinking Asif ran to the kitchen, grabbed two knives and chased them outside for a second time.
He said: “It appeared to be a knife. You could see the glimmer of the metal. The police think it was a screwdriver.” Appearing with Charlotte on the ITV show, Asif says he’s released the CCTV footage in a bid to catch those responsible and is offering a £5,000 reward for any information which leads to a conviction.
Piers also took to Twitter to highlight Asif’s bravery, calling him a ‘hero.’