‘Blood poured. I thought I was going to die’
FOR 18 AND 19 YEARS RESPECTIVELY
A DISABLED gran who suffered horrific injuries at the hands of masked robbers who burst into her home has spoken of her ordeal.
Barbara Dransfield, who has a prosthetic leg, was subjected to a vicious beating at the hands of Nathan Lee Clark and Stephen Mortin.
Now Clark, 24, of no fixed address, has been jailed for 19 years, while Morton, 23, of Rutland Street, Hyde, has been jailed for 18 years.
Both were found guilty of conspiracy to rob at a Minshull Street Crown Court trial which heard they forced their way into her Ashton-under-Lyne home armed with a knife and a baseball bat.
The pair demanded money from Barbara and when she refused she was subjected to a brutal assault, which left her with a fractured skull, multiple facial fractures, and injuries to her arms.
When the pair left she was able to ring her husband to tell him she had been ‘battered,’ and he then called 999. The thugs made off with some fishing tackle belonging to Mrs Dransfield’s husband, and some tins containing loose change.
Barbara has since made a full recovery, although the psychological scars remain.
She said: “I heard this crash and then these voices, ‘it’s the police, stay where you are,’ and I thought ‘why’s the police broke into the back of my house?’ So I got up, struggled to get in my wheelchair – because I don’t wear my prosthesis at night – and just came out of my bedroom, that’s when it all started.
“The small one was baseballbatting me, the other one threatened to slash me if I didn’t give them money, that’s all they kept asking for – money. Him with the knife went into the bedroom and as far as I know ransacked it, so I don’t go in the bedroom after that. “I got hit eight, nine times in my face, blood was just pouring everywhere, I just thought I was going to die. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in intensive care, two weeks after it happened. “I ended up on life support then I ended up having a trachectomy, every bone in my face was broken, and my top palate, my jaw was broken eight places, Thanking Det Chf Insp Richard Ennis, of GMP’s Tameside Borough, and his ‘absolutely brilliant’ team for getting her justice, she described the pair’s sentences as satisfying. “It’s a long time. Let’s hope they suffer now. All I can do now is just try and put it behind me. How long it’s going to take I don’t know.”