A MORNINGSIDE thief got more than he bargained for last Friday night when he chose the wrong home to break into and found himself facing a deadly samurai sword which was swung at him a “few” times while he tried to escape.
According to Renette Edwards, who is still shaken a week after the incident, a neighbour alerted her to an intruder in her Lambert Road flat. “We had a night tattoo client and I was at our shop on Florida Road when I got the call. I think we called the police and I just ran down the road to my flat with my colleague Kelvin. It was late so completely dark when I ran up the stairs to the second floor of my flat. I think the intruder heard me and jumped out the window because I heard a splash in the small pool outside.
“I just lost it and got so mad because I saw all my stuff lying thrown all over my bedroom and there he was trying to get away. I felt so violated and exposed and just grabbed one of the swords that my husband collected and went out after him,” Edwards said.
The shocked criminal didn’t expect what came next. He tried to get away by jumping up the wall to the next complex but his shoe got stuck in the electric fence and he was stuck,when Edwards and her colleague got to him. “My husband Dave had a martial arts background and had that sword for about 30 years, it was a great talking piece but one we both knew how to use. In that split second I realised I had to hit him with the blunt side and brought it down a few times, while screaming “You will never rob me again” and he said “sorry” and fell onto the driveway of the next complex,” she said.
Edwards was shocked when the man managed to get up from the fall and escape over the neighbouring complex gates, where her colleague Kelvin Nicholson was waiting. When the burglar fell over, he ran into Nicholson who tried to stop him by throwing a punch, but the resilient thief still managed to get away battered, bruised and without a shoe, to an abandoned house in Florida Road.
“I’m so disappointed that the police were unable to get here in time to find the intruder. It’s terrible to live in fear and like a prisoner in your own home, I refuse to be a victim ever again. I have 18 years service as a police officer and still feel anxious a week after the incident, I can’t imagine how anyone without training manages after these traumatic crimes. I’ve set traps around my windows now and security has been upped.
The suspect got away with two cellphones and two watches. Edwards found her laptop on the windowsill, so she was confident that she had disturbed the intruder. “He may have got away with my goods but he also got away pretty sore,” she added.
