JP resigns to launch private prosecution of intruders who threatened his family
A MAGISTRATE defending his family against an armed gang who stormed his home ended up being arrested and accused of a racially aggravated assault.
Police held Nigel Stringer for three hours and he remains under investigation while the gang – believed to have been armed with a gun, knives, metal bars and a crossbow – were allowed to leave.
The 67-year-old, who has been a magistrate for 26 years, is now standing down so he can pursue a private prosecution against the men. His wife Cindy, 55, says she lives in constant fear since the terrifying events of January 14.
The millionaire property developer, who believes the incident may have arisen from a dispute with a tenant over rent arrears, was enjoying a Sunday afternoon with his wife and children aged 26, 24 and 22 at their £2million, 40-room home in Morningthorpe, Norfolk, when three cars pulled up at the gates and a group of men climbed into the grounds.
He rang 999. ‘I told the operator we were under attack,’ he said. ‘I could see at least three men running between the trees. One had a weapon which looked like a crossbow. The others had steel bars.’
When a fourth man armed with what appeared to be a handgun started banging on their glass front door, Mr Stringer said he grabbed a child’s hockey stick and confronted the intruder.
‘I used my hands and the stick to push him away from the house. He kept punching and kicking me. I was by that time bruised, bleeding and utterly exhausted.’
Mr Stringer said he was then horrified to see four other men on the other side of a hedge urging their companion with phrases such as: ‘Go on, my n ***** , slog him’.
He said: ‘I had no strength left, I only had my voice and I tried to find the most shocking words to shout, thinking if they came through that hedge we could be killed.
‘Using their own words, I shouted: “And if you n ***** s come into my garden I will f***ing hit you with this”. I merely flung their own words back at them. I am not racist.’
The other men retreated to their cars by the gate, claimed Mr Stringer. Moments before police arrived, the remaining intruder made a 999 call saying
‘I was bruised and bleeding’
he had been attacked by two men, suffered numerous injuries and racially abused.
Five police cars then arrived and Mr Stringer and his son were arrested on suspicion of a racially aggravated attack.
Police questioned the men at the gate but none was arrested. Mr Stringer said police told him the gang had simply entered his garden as civil trespassers and ‘done nothing wrong’.
Within weeks he was told police had closed the file about the trespass. He has had to resign as a magistrate as he could not have launched a private prosecution while sitting on the bench.
Norfolk Police said a file had been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service.