London - An 85-year-old former amateur boxer fought off an alleged drug-fuelled mugger who was four times younger than him – and escaped with just two newspapers.
Retired removal man and great-grandfather Ernie Hanratty was thrown to the ground by hooded Daniel Rose, 21, as he returned from his morning shopping trip.
Rose grabbed the pensioner by the lapel of his jacket and said: “Give me twenty quid and I’ll go.” But Mr Hanratty replied: “You’ll bloody go, but you’ll not be getting any £20.”
Mr Hanratty then clamped the thief tightly around the wrist, and Rose than ran off with nothing more than the two newspapers in a plastic bag.
Mr Hanratty, a father-of-two whose wife Mary died in 2003, said: “He was a pale pasty lad. There was no way the b***er was getting away with any money, but he cost me two copies of a newspaper.” He added: “I grew up knowing how to look after myself and nobody pushed me around. If I’d been a few years younger he’d have been on the deck in a second.”
Forklift driver Rose, from Stanley, County Durham, had been on a night-long drink and drugs bender and had no memory of the attack – or a burglary he carried out nearby less than an hour earlier.
He was jailed for two and a half years by Judge Peter Armstrong at Teesside Crown Court.
Daily Mail