2aguy
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- Jul 19, 2014
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Burglaries in the United Kingdom.....
Wealthy retired couple tortured by burglars who forced wife to walk on broken glass in £20,000 raid
wealthy couple were tortured by "Swat team" burglars who forced the wife to walk on broken glass before breaking one of her toes with a sledgehammer while stealing £20,000 of gold and jewels.
Professional burglars John McCarthy, 35, and Richard Leslie, 37, were branded "every householder's worst nightmare" after playing leading roles in the gang that terrorised the vulnerable pensioners for four hours during a night-time raid.
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During their ordeal, the couple, aged in their 70s, were bound with tape, beaten, threatened and locked in a utility room.
The burglars hit the 77-year-old man with a chair and forced his 75-year-old wife to walk barefoot on glass, having discarded her slippers.
One of the burglars threatened to cut off the wife's fingers and ear with a pair of shears if gold, cash and Rolex watches were not produced.
She also needed extensive dental treatment because of the beating to her face. Her husband was stuck with pins "many times" to extort more valuables, the court heard.
During the attack, one of the armed intruders boasted: "This is what we do for a living."
They made off with Chinese ornaments in 24 carat gold, jewellery, silver commemorative coins featuring Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, gold bars, a custom-made Seiko watch as well as thousands of pounds and Hong Kong dollars in cash.
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An Englishman's home is his dungeon
Various reassuring types, from police spokesmen to the Economist, described the stabbing of the Moncktons as a "burglary gone wrong". If only more burglaries could go right, they imply, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.
But the trouble is that this kind of burglary - the kind most likely to go "wrong" - is now the norm in Britain. In America, it's called a "hot" burglary - a burglary that takes place when the homeowners are present - or a "home invasion", which is a much more accurate term.
Just over 10 per cent of US burglaries are "hot" burglaries, and in my part of the world it's statistically insignificant: there is virtually zero chance of a New Hampshire home being broken into while the family are present. But in England and Wales it's more than 50 per cent and climbing. Which is hardly surprising given the police's petty, well-publicised pursuit of those citizens who have the impertinence to resist criminals.
These days, even as he or she is being clobbered, the more thoughtful British subject is usually keeping an eye (the one that hasn't been poked out) on potential liability. Four years ago, Shirley Best, proprietor of the Rolander Fashion emporium, whose clients include Zara Phillips, was ironing some clothes when the proverbial two youths showed up. They pressed the hot iron into her flesh, burning her badly, and then stole her watch. "I was frightened to defend myself," said Miss Best. "I thought if I did anything I would be arrested." There speaks the modern British crime victim.
Waterboarded by a gang of robbers in her £7m home: Masked intruders torture grandmother, 73, for three hours to make her open a safe
That led to a terrifying three-hour ordeal in which the attackers used waterboarding – a form of torture in which the victim is made to feel they are about to be drowned.
The men took underwear from Mrs Jansen’s bedroom and forced it into her mouth before dragging her into the en-suite bathroom. They pulled her head back over the bath and covered her face with a towel they kept flooded with water from the shower head.
‘They did this to me three times but I just couldn’t open the safe,’ she said. ‘I kept telling them it was empty but they didn’t believe me.’
Mrs Jansen, who lives on a private estate in Weybridge, Surrey, told the Mail: ‘I was absolutely terrified, I thought they were going to kill me.
‘They asked me if I had any grandchildren, I told them I had ten and they said “We are going to kill you, do you think your grandchildren will miss you?”
‘I was consumed by fear. It was sheer hell and all I can remember is praying.’
Her six-bedroomed house had been broken into several weeks before the attack last Friday and Surrey Police believe the raiders had located the two safes at that point.
Read more: Waterboarded by a gang of robbers in her £7m home: Masked intruders torture grandmother, 73, for three hours to make her open a safe
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