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Status Anxiety

28 February 2009

I have taken to sleeping with my grandfather’s cavalry sword under the bed

I caught a burglar last week. I was standing in my kitchen at 11 o’clock on Saturday morning when a young man suddenly appeared at the bottom of the garden. At first, I didn’t realise he was a burglar. I strolled outside in a spirit of genuine curiosity. What was he doing?

‘I was playing football and I kicked the ball over the fence,’ he said. ‘I thought it had gone in your garden, but it must have gone in the next-door one.’ At first, I believed him. He was young enough to be playing football — mid-to-late twenties — and he apologised for having climbed over my back fence. I showed him out through the front gate and it was only when he didn’t knock on the door of my neighbours that I realised he must be lying. Instead, he simply walked off down the street.

I rushed back inside to get my camera, hoping to take a photograph of him, but by the time I got outside again he’d vanished. I didn’t bother reporting it to the police until two days later, by which time a house four doors down had been burgled. I managed to track down the investigating officer and gave him a detailed description of the man I’d seen in my garden. He confirmed that the ‘lost football’ routine was a well-known ruse and that the man had probably been casing the joint. He said he might send round some officers with some images of burglars for me to look at, but he never did.

My wife Caroline was remarkably blasé about all this until we met a couple of our neighbours at a dinner party, who’d been subjected to a four-hour ordeal by three crack addicts. It was the middle of the night and the first the husband knew about his home being broken into was when one of the intruders sat on his chest and placed a pillow over his head. He warned him that if he tried to remove it, he’d cut his throat. His wife, too, was made to hold a pillow over her head while the three men searched for valuables. When they couldn’t find anything, they threatened to cut off one of the husband’s fingers. He persuaded them to take his wallet instead and gave them the pin number of his cashpoint card. One of the men stayed with them while the other two went to the nearest bank.

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D Short

February 26th, 2009 6:02pm Report this comment

Well, the next burglar will know where to find a useful, threatening weapon.

And our wonderful police, who just love an easy middle-class collar, might be round before that

Jamal Akhbar

February 27th, 2009 11:28am Report this comment

What about sleeping under the bed with the sword, and putting dummy in the bed for the burglars to play with?

Person of Choler

February 27th, 2009 12:08pm Report this comment

Why don't the people in the UK stand up for a right to defend yourselves? I'd rather take a chance on my ability to deploy a shotgun than to watch my family terrorized by a gang of crackheads. Quit cowering and whimpering.

Anxiously stable

February 27th, 2009 1:21pm Report this comment

Scariest thing that ever happened to me was waking up to find a burglar rummaging through my house. That was back when I was single. Now, with a wife and two kids to protect, shouting down the stairs to ‘get the f**k out’ might seem a bit pathetic.

Bill Walker

February 27th, 2009 3:49pm Report this comment

Same pro-burglar conditions apply here. However, one day my 70+ year-old father, in no great health, was out walking using his cane.

A young male came up to him and demanded his money. My father, an old Glasgow rugby player, asked him to repeat the demand, then proceeded to beat the daylights out of him with his cane. The miscreant soon ran off, taking nothing.

This parasite had thought to intimidate an old man who had been imprisoned by the Japanese and beaten by them, and had been through the war as their prisoner. Bad choice.

Toby Young

February 27th, 2009 3:49pm Report this comment

Person of Choler, I'm not sure my neighbours' ordeal would have worked out better if they'd had a shotgun in the bedroom. Who knows what might have happened? As it was, he and his wife escaped completely unscathed -- and, I should add, the police caught the three crack heads a few days later and they were tried, convicted and sent to prison. If the husband had "taken the chance" you're recommending, he might now be in prison.

Bob

February 27th, 2009 5:21pm Report this comment

There are two separate issues here - Tactical and Legal.

Tactical: Having secure weapons readily available is always useful and prudent. If other precautions are taken, it is most unlikely that someone will gain entrance and attack you without your being able to arm yourself in time to kill them as they come in.

Legal: The problem here is that you are not really a citizen of a free country. You are a subject of the state, a ward of the court. You have no rights. In principle, you could rectify this situation, but you are evidently satisfied with your subservient condition, having become accustomed to it over many centuries. Your rulers tell you that you cannot resist, and you are so willfully stupid as to believe them. You deserve your fate.

Around here (Colorado), we call the cops to retrieve the bodies.

@iJuli

February 27th, 2009 11:23pm Report this comment

Terrifying. I agree that having a gun in the bedroom probably would not have helped, maybe a security check to see what can be done to keep them on the outside.

James Windros

February 27th, 2009 11:55pm Report this comment

Shouldn't the firt line read, "I saw a burglar last week"? When did you catch him?

Andy

March 1st, 2009 7:23am Report this comment

Here in South Australia, we have a law which protects anyone acting in self-defence against home invasion. Amazing what the very thought of a gun can do. The trick is, though: be trained, ready - and prepared - to use it. Don't even think about it if you're not.

iron mike

March 2nd, 2009 10:55pm Report this comment

I think that depending on the kindness of crack heads not to cause harm to one's family is at best a poor substitute for simple courage. I would rather go to jail knowing I had protected my family. Bob is right. Instead of complaining you should do something about your subservience.

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