The day I took on a burglar... with a pair of secateurs

The most important thing about a house is its garden. The most so little. important thing about a garden is seclusion. For me, it has to be somewhere the children can play in absolute security when they are little, and where you can relax safe from prying eyes when you are not

That’s why, when I learned I was going to be a father again at the ridiculous age of 57, I bought the house I have lived in for the past 20 years.

It had the perfect garden, surrounded by Victorian brick walls still as sturdy as they were when they were built almost 200 years ago. The wall at the bottom was topped by a wooden fence, which was covered in thick ivy.

I have always been one of those gardeners who lets nature get on with it. I defend it on the basis that there’s no such thing as a weed — just a wild flower in the wrong place. And in my garden there’s no such thing as the wrong place.

I call it being in touch with nature. Others might call it sheer laziness. But the birds and the bees and the frogs love it, and so did I.

You will notice the past tense in that sentence. For part of my garden’s appeal has been tarnished by what happened the other day.

The kitchen at my home in West London looks out onto the garden, and I was in there talking on the phone to a local mother who wanted me to make a little speech at her daughter’s school.

That’s when I noticed something strange: the fence had disappeared — smashed to the ground and the mass of ivy with it.

A second later, a man came into view from behind a large shrub. he had obviously not seen me. he looked around furtively and advanced towards the kitchen. It was pretty obvious what he had in mind.

What I did next surprised even me. I dropped the phone (Lord knows what my neighbour must have made of it), uttered a word I would definitely not have used at the school prize-giving and wrenched open the kitchen door.

As I did so, I spotted a pair of garden secateurs on a shelf below the kitchen worktop. I grabbed them and tore out into the garden, running straight at the intruder.

I was gripping the secateurs in my fist as though they were a broadsword and I was part of an attacking militia. I was barely aware that I was screaming at the man, demanding to know what the hell he was doing in my garden and telling him what I would do to him if he didn’t clear off pronto.

SO FAR, so stupid. I should have been scared, and then I should have locked the kitchen door and dialled 999. The intruder was half my age, bearded, wearing a hoodie and more than a match for me physically.

The last time I was engaged in physical combat was with my two brothers, and I ended up with a broken collarbone. And that had been a friendly romp in the living room when we were celebrating my elder son’s first solo appearance as a cellist.

The last time I actually punched anyone was when I was 22. he was a fellow reporter and he’d stolen my camera pitch when we were waiting to film the Queen arriving in Cardiff. I’m pretty sure it hurt me much more than it hurt him.

The truth is that nobody in the darkest of dark alleys could confuse me with Mike Tyson. But I was not scared when I saw the

intruder in the garden — and that’s what was really scary.

I have tried to tell myself since then that I could never have actually used the secateurs to stab him, but I can’t be 100 per cent certain of that. It is truly extraordinary how many feelings the brain is capable of processing simultaneously when you’re under extreme stress.

The experts tell us nature equipped humans to be able to cope with fear. Our brains are designed to send out powerful hormones and signals to our bodies to give us the energy to run. Or the power to fight.

I can understand that now. It explains why a soldier who is wounded on the battlefield and still coming under lethal fire is capable of charging into the enemy’s guns. It might even explain why I thought I might be capable of attacking a man who might possibly present a threat to me and the security of my home.

In those few seconds, I even tried to imagine what stabbing somebody might feel like and how much force I might put behind it. What if I were to hurt him seriously? What if, God forbid, I were to kill him!

Old newsman that I am, I remembered the many stories I had reported on in which householders had ended up in court for attacking intruders and, in a few notorious cases, killing them.

Part of my rational brain told me I was simply incapable of doing any such thing. I abhor violence. I have never so much as slapped one of my children.

But the other part was calculating how I would react if the man had grabbed the secateurs from me and the tables were turned.

Thank God, the intruder seemed just as surprised at my appearance in the garden as I had been at his. he stood his ground for a few seconds, then turned and ran, using the wrecked fence and mass of ivy to get over the wall.

I chased after him, but stopped at the wall and watched him disappear. And only then did the red mist fade and I dialled 999.

NOr was this the only time I have confronted a burglar. The last time it was about midnight and I was sound asleep in a top-floor bedroom. There was no one else in the house and I was woken by the landing light being switched on.

Again, I reacted instinctively, made my voice as deep as I could, growled something like “F*** you!” and leaped out of bed — naked as the day I was born.

Thank God he, too, fled. But again I was very stupid.

I chased him down three flights of stairs and stopped only when he ran across the broken glass from the door that he’d smashed to get in, and from there out into the street.

When the police arrived, they pointed to the large bread knife the burglar had passed on his way upstairs. They didn’t need to say anything and nor did they need to point out the risk I had taken. I got the message. And if it happens again? I honestly don’t know how I will react. I tell myself that it will be different. But how can I — how can anyone — be sure?

Within hours of the confrontation in my garden, my anger had been replaced with a feeling almost of sympathy for the intruder. he must have been pretty desperate to do what he had done.

he certainly looked as if he needed a good meal. Maybe a better man than me would have invited him in, perhaps given him a meal and even helped him make a new start in life.

Maybe. But what I know for sure is that there is a fine line between that humane approach and the almost primitive instinct to protect hearth and home.

A dangerously fine line.

‘At least I wasn’t naked like the last time I confronted an intruder!’