Kick-boxing pair help detain serial burglar

A PAIR of semi-pro kickboxers interrupted their sparring session to rush to the aid of a neighbour who was being attacked by a burglar, a court heard.

Steve Evans, a company chairman, grappled with Leon Gratton, a serial burglar, when he and his wife confronted him.

Mr Evans tried to detain him at their Gloucester home, and the fight spilt out onto the back patio.

Mr Evans sustained a suspected broken nose, and Gratton also bit him on the thumb leaving him in need of a course of antibiotics.

But the commotion was heard by Trevor Thorn, a neighbour and Danny Duckett, his kick-boxing friend.

The pair, both in their 30s, had been training in Mr Thorn’s home gym when they heard Mrs Evans screaming hysterically.

As soon as they arrived in Mr Evans’s house, they overpowered Gratton, getting him into a stranglehold and pinning down his legs. They emptied out Gratton’s pockets and found £6,000 worth of the Evans’s jewellery.

At Gloucester Crown Court, Gratton, of Abbeydale, Gloucester, was jailed for four years after he admitted burglary on June 29.

George Threlfall, Gratton’s defence lawyer, said the men left Gratton with a number of injuries, but Judge Graham Cottle was unsympathetic, saying: “Take them to court.”

The court heard that Gratton had 25 previous convictions for 60 offences, and had spent 13 years in jail.