Pensioner traps thief after ‘guard dog’ gave him a friendly lick
A PENSIONER tackled a burglar and trapped him until police arrived after her “guard dog” only licked the intruder, a court heard.
Jean Walsh, a great-grandmother, pushed Tallen Kirby, 24, against the wall and then wedged a door shut so the thief could not escape.
She has now been praised by a judge who jailed Kirby for 15 months.
Mrs Walsh, 73, was downstairs in her home in Stockton-on-Tees, Durham, when she heard banging from upstairs. She went out into the hall and saw Kirby walking down the stairs with a torch in his hand and decided to tackle him.
She said: “I was just acting on adrenaline, really. Later that night when I got into bed, I laughed to myself and was quite shocked with what I had done. But in that moment I just did what I had to do. I wanted him out of my house.”
Mrs Walsh, a retired secretary, threatened to set her dog Marley on the burglar.
She said: “The lad made no response when I said that so I let Marley out and said ‘ go on Marley’. He came out wagging his tail and went over to him and licked him. I couldn’t believe it. He could have at least growled at him.”
Mrs Walsh continued: “I asked him if anyone else was up there. He mumbled so I got hold of his T-shirt and pushed him to the wall. I said it again and he said there was another couple of people upstairs.
“I told him to get out of my house but he said ‘ No I am going into that room’ – pointing to my sitting room. I just thought ‘right, go on then’.”
Mrs Walsh, a mother of three, grandmother of 11 and great-grandmother of one, went to her kitchen, wedged the door shut with her foot and called the police. She said: “I then quickly rang my son. Next thing I heard noises and banging at the front door. I was worried at this point that there was a whole gang of them. I looked out and it was the police – I couldn’t believe it.”
The police were in fact already in Mrs Walsh’s street after they received a call from a neighbour saying that a man was acting suspiciously in the area. No one else had been in the house. Kirby, from Stockton, pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court to burglary and separate offences of theft from a parked car and criminal damage to a police cell. Kelleigh Lodge, mitigating, said Kirby had been heavily under the influence of drugs.
Judge Paul Camp said: “The lady acted very bravely. She must have been very frightened when you said that there were others in the house, and you were under the influence of drugs.”