John Humphrys chases burglar out of his garden with a pair of secateurs
JOHN HUMPHRYS has revealed how he scared a would-be burglar out of his garden by charging at him with a pair of secateurs.
The veteran presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme said he ‘lost control of his anger’ when he launched his ‘cavalryman’s charge’ at the stranger. But with hindsight the father-of-three, who also hosts TV’s Mastermind, now believes he behaved like an ‘utter fool’ because he could have ended up injuring or even killing the intruder.
The broadcaster, 75, was making a phone call in the kitchen when he spotted the man emerge from behind a bush in the garden.
He said: ‘What I should have done was end the call swiftly, 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.’
The fearless response will come as no surprise to Radio 4 listeners, who know Humphrys for his trademark uncompromising style.
Humphrys, who recalled his ordeal in the Waitrose magazine Weekend, said he wasn’t the ‘least afraid’ during the encounter. He said: ‘If he had been only a little bit surprised he would have quickly sized me up. He’d have seen a skinny geezer twice his age, removed my “weapon” from my trembling hand and gone about his business. That’s assuming he didn’t do to me what I’d been threatening to do to him.’
But the star said he dreaded to think how far he would have gone to protect his home and family.
He said: ‘What if he’d stood his ground? Would I really have stabbed him with the secateurs? And what if I had and caused him serious injury… perhaps even killed him? Unlikely but not impossible. For those few seconds I was not in control of my anger. I wasn’t the least afraid. That came later. All I could think was how dare this man threaten my home and family.’
Luckily for Humphrys, the intruder muttered some comments about looking for a place to sleep before escaping over a garden wall.
The broadcaster said the confrontation was not the first time he had come face to face with a burglar. In that incident he leapt out of bed naked to chase a raider down three flights of stairs, only stopping when he ran into the street across the broken glass from the door the thief had smashed to get in.
Humphrys said the thought of attacking someone with secateurs filled him with revulsion. Within minutes of the most recent intruder escaping over the wall, he began to feel guilty about his actions.
He said: ‘I wanted to shout after him and apologise. Maybe he really had been just looking for somewhere to sleep… Oh lord, it’s not easy being a middle-class liberal.’