Nine-month ordeal of men taken to court after catching migrant burglar on their roof as British police waited on the ground

Crap British justice again

Two men were dragged to court for apprehending a Romanian they caught burgling their business.

A nine-month ordeal ended for Steven Iliffe, 54, and son Daniel, 26, yesterday when a judge threw out the case against them.

They had begged police to go on a roof to arrest career criminal Petre Ilie. But officers were barred by their superiors, via their radio, due to health and safety rules.

Eventually, the father and son, both former soldiers, went on the roof themselves to tackle the armed man.

They were stunned when the police later arrested them on suspicion of attempted murder – and later charged them with the lesser offence of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Yesterday, the pair said they were considering legal action against Leicestershire Police.

Mr Iliffe senior said he had suffered a heart attack in a cell triggered by the stress of his arrest at their scrap metal business in Hinckley, Leicestershire, last December.

He added: ‘We had suffered a string of burglaries and went up onto that roof only because the police had refused to do so.’

He said he grabbed Ilie by the shoulder and ‘walloped’ him once to the chest to restrain him, while his son admitted striking the intruder on the hand with a wooden roof baton to try to dislodge an eight-inch metal roof bolt from his grasp.

Mr Iliffe junior is said to have struck the suspect again before the pair managed to drag him off the roof and down a ladder to police. But a PC waiting on the ground claimed to have seen them carry out a ferocious assault.

Leicester Crown Court was told yesterday that Ilie, 39, already had ‘a number of convictions for burglary, failing to surrender and breaching court orders’ in the UK under the name Christopher Tudor. In 2010 he was deported but sneaked back into the UK. He was then arrested again alongside the Iliffes.

Father-of-four Ilie admitted burglary with intent to steal and the attempted burglary of a nearby business earlier that night. He was sentenced to 26 weeks in jail and deported for a second time on his release in March this year.

The Iliffes’ trial had been for the judge to consider a defence application to throw the case out as an ‘abuse of the court process’.

The application hinged on a decision by the UK Border Agency to refuse permission for Ilie to be returned to the UK to give evidence because he was a ‘flight risk’ – having been deported twice – and might disappear in the UK.

The Iliffes claimed they could not have a fair trial if Ilie could not be cross-examined. The judge agreed and granted the application.

Original report here. (Via POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)




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