Humphrys: I was foolish to chase off intruder
JOHN HUMPHRYS, the veteran BBC presenter, has revealed how he chased an intruder out of his back garden with a pair of garden secateurs.
The 75-year-old host of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme said that in hindsight it was probably an “unwise choice” to confront the man rather than immediately call the police.
“It was 9.15am and I was on the phone. I wandered into the kitchen. I looked out of the window into the garden and saw a man emerge from behind a big bush,” he said.
“He hadn’t spotted me. He glanced around furtively and started walking towards the house. It was pretty obvious what he had in mind.
“What I should have done was dial 999 and lock the kitchen door. Instead, I grabbed a pair of secateurs, charged out into the garden brandishing them as though they were a cavalryman’s sabre and rushed at him, screaming threats in the sort of language that has no place in a respectable publication.”
Humphrys added: “If he had been only a little less surprised, he would have quickly sized me up. He would have seen a scared, skinny old geezer twice his age, removed my ‘weapon’ from my trembling hands and gone about his business. That’s assuming he did not do to me what I had been threatening to do to him.”
Writing in his Waitrose Weekend magazine column, he said the man “muttered something unintelligible” about looking for somewhere to sleep before fleeing over the garden wall.
“Only then did I dial 999 – and realise what an utter fool I had been.
“What if he had stood his ground? And what if I had and caused him serious injury – perhaps even killed him? Unlikely but not impossible.”
It is not the first time Humphrys, who confirmed earlier this year that he would step down from hosting Today after 32 years at the helm, has chased off an intruder in his home.
The first time he was sound asleep when he was woken by the landing light being switched on at about midnight. He leapt out of bed naked and chased the burglar down three flights of stairs.
Humphrys said: “When the police arrived they pointed to the large bread knife the burglar had passed on his way upstairs.
“They did not need to say anything, nor did they need to point out the risk I had taken. I got the message.”