See book and story referred to in post #105, above.
Posted on 01/23/2008 7:19:19 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
A millionaire yesterday told how he fought off three armed burglars who were holding a knife to his daughter's throat, saying he "would rather die like a man than a dog".
Bernard Dwyer, 51, was convinced he and his family were about to be killed so he chose to take on the men - hours after they had allegedly killed a restaurant owner, a court heard.
Mr Dwyer came to his 13-year-old daughter Aisling's rescue after hearing her piercing screams for help, the Old Bailey was told.
Despite being threatened with a gun, stabbed three times in the head and beaten unconscious with a knuckle-duster, Mr Dwyer fought back as one of his attackers screamed "kill the b******".
He managed to wrestle a gun from one of the masked raiders and chased them from his luxury home in Uxbridge, West London, in November 2006, the jury heard.
Yesterday, Irish-raised Mr Dwyer, a construction boss, faced two of the three men accused of the burglary.
Brothers Michael and Dean Atkins are also on trial for the murder of restaurant owner Helen Chung, 65, the day before the break-in.
A third man, Joseph Carty, committed suicide in his cell last year while on remand for both offences.
The court heard Mr Dwyer, Aisling, now 14, and his son Danny, 19, were asleep when three men burst in.
He said: "I heard people running up the stairs and Aisling screaming 'Dad'. I had never heard screaming like that before. I knew something was clearly wrong."
Mr Dwyer said he jumped from his bed and ran towards Aisling's room but was confronted at the doorway. "There were three guys coming towards me," he said.
"All masked, all covered with balaclavas, gloves, padded out, forensically aware.
"One man was holding a gun, waving it about, screaming menacingly."
He said they attacked him after he agreed to show them where his safe was, one with a knuckle-duster.
Mr Dwyer said: "I took quite a few blows at that point.
"I have seen things on television and I have seen violent stuff but I have never seen this level of violence.
"I was being compliant and they were smashing and bashing me."
Mr Dwyer was knocked unconscious for a few minutes and when he came round one man was holding a knife to Aisling's throat and screaming: "I am going to cut your f****** daughter".
Mr Dwyer said: "We were going to die anyway, that's what I thought. I thought, if I am going to die then I would rather die like a man than a dog."
Mr Dwyer pushed the weapon away before striking the attacker.
"I hit him several times, I hit him plenty. The man with the knuckleduster screamed 'He's fighting back the b******, kill the b******, he's fighting back.'"
Mr Dwyer said he was stabbed three times in the head but managed to fight the raiders off and shut the bedroom door. But the men tried to push back in and they fought again, he said. "I have never used a weapon in my life and it was a great feeling.
"I grabbed the gun and bashed it across the knuckle-duster guy. Next thing is they took off and I chased them down the stairs."
The raiders fled empty-handed, leaving Mr Dwyer with broken ribs and 30 cuts to his body and head.
The court has heard the blood of Mr Dwyer and the restaurant owner were found on the gun at his home.
Michael Atkins, 25, and Dean Atkins, 26, both of no fixed address, deny murder, two counts of aggravated burglary, wounding with intent and possession of an imitation firearm with intent.
It is claimed the two also murdered Mrs Chung the previous night after she refused to reveal the hiding place of her £218,000 life savings when they broke into her home.
The court has heard the blood of both the businessman and the restaurant owner were found on the gun when it recovered from Mr Dwyer's home.
A DNA sample matching Joseph Carty, 21, - who later hanged himself in his cell at Belmarsh prison last February - was also discovered on the handle and on swabs taken from the face of Mrs Chung.
Dean Atkins had escaped from Stanford Open Prison in on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, just two days before the attack in Cowley, west London, on November 5, 2006. He was allegedly picked up by his brother and Carty.
Kam Fum Chung, known by all as Helen, was grabbed as she returned home at Meadow View, Cowley, after finishing work at the Chinese Mandarin restaurant in West Drayton.
Within minutes of arriving home she was repeatedly kicked and stamped and died from multiple fractures to her skull, face, neck and ribs.
Michael Atkins was arrested six weeks after the attack on December 21 in the Southwick area of Brighton, East Sussex.
Dean Atkins was arrested in the early hours of November 18, 2006, when a car was stopped in the area of Langley, Berkshire, near West Drayton, west London.
The trial continues.
"Michael Atkins, 25, and Dean Atkins, 26, both of no fixed address, deny murder, two counts of aggravated burglary, wounding with intent and possession of an imitation firearm with intent. "
Remember, he's a millionaire receiving extremely favourable treatment by the press, and his assailants were apparantly not from a protected [muslum] group. Accordingly, he could not only have easily afforded to mount a well-qualified legal defence team that could have utilized legal precedent set from a time when British law was fair and reasonable, but the press would have crucified the prosecution for even the slightest mistake.
Better for them to let this one slide by...and interestingly, the same lack of fortitude that seems to have permeated British society may well have affected the public prosecutor and his staff and caused them to back away from the old gent who might have fought them as effectively as he did the other gang of bullies.
You skipped the heel-stomp to his throat once he's on the ground. Not only does it let you save his ammo for any of his pals who might be about, but it's quieter and doesn't result in lead flying around that might injure any of those presumably innocent hostages/bystanders.
Now click here and read this as your pennance....
When those guys get out of prison, he should arrange for them each to win a free, all-expenses-paid vacation to a Third World country.
And then have all loose ends tied up.
I presume that you have not read the interesting collection of five short stories by Frederick Forsythe entitled The Veteran, published in 2001.
You should really give at least the title chapter a close read....
Enoch Powell pretty well called it, way back in 1968. But Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess was a pretty astute observer as well.
It's not at all that bad if you avoid the urban areas where the muslums and unemployed prey on the unwary, but they're usually pretty good at spotting the difference between their sheep-people victims and visiting Yanks or off-duty soildiers who might be a bit too much of a handful. And even in London, things are pretty much allright if you pay attention to the local conditions in northside pubs and cafs.
But you've got a point that some of the best from Britain are those who've adventurously struck out elsewhere on vacation, for employment abroad, or are ex-pats. Of course, that was also true centuries ago when England's best took off, willingly or not, for new opportunities in North America and Australia.
General Comment;
Wanna bet for everyone successful defeat of a home invasion in good ol England there are 50-100 that end just the other way...
Too bad there are no free men (armed) in England, golly, even the UK Pistol team has to drive to... FRANCE to practice!
They at least, have no law abiding citizens that can use a lawfully owned handgun (or many long arms either) for any purpose, legal or otherwise, much to the delight of the gun control crowd-now knives and other “weapons” are being policed up as well. Soon to be very messy place to be.
Ever notice that few home invasions occur in the rural American homeland compared to the “civilized” urban areas? Too many individualists willing to be men and take their security as a personal responsibility.
“You can perhaps persuade and armed amn, you may force and unarmed man”.
God Bless
This guy did good. Real good.
Indeed. Perhaps he'll celebrate with a relaxing vacation in Costa Rica.
I’m thinking that a 40 pound German Shepard could have probably prevented this attack.
I swear, people just don’t get it. you UNARM a society, and all you have then is a society of TARGETS. If the average person owned a gun, the frikkin Yobs would not BE yobs, they would not risk their pencil-necks if they knew they would be facing a gun most likely or a victim that fights back. An ARMED society is a SAFE one. Good for that Irishman! The meek don’t inherit the earth, they get the crap beat out of them by those that do not care.
I have taught many hundreds of people firearms safety and how to shoot.
I recommend that you take a firearms safety course. It will familiarize you with firearms and reduce your nervousness. If your state offers concealed carry permits (most do) and training is required (many require it), a CCW course is an excellent way to find out about firearms, firearms safety, and the law regarding deadly force.
Take the course. Your eyes will be opened. Even if you decide that a firearm is not for you, the knowledge will be more than worth the effort.
There are many techniques that allow the mix of kids and firearms safely. Kids have more fatal accidents with bikes than they do with guns, and for more with swimming pools than with guns.
“I grabbed the gun and bashed it across the knuckle-duster guy. Next thing is they took off and I chased them down the stairs.”
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He should have shot them instead of hitting him across the head.
See book and story referred to in post #105, above.
I’m not sure why Powell’s anti-immigration speech applies to a situation in which an Irish immigrant was stabbed and a Chinese immigrant was murdered by three apparently native-born white Englishmen.
Just be sure to keep up with the 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act and the 1997 and subsequent amendments.
And, oh, by the way: don't overfeed your *Dangerous Dog*.
My reply was to the question in TexasRepublic's post #77, the first nine words of which were: Everytime that I read about social dysfunction in England...
Certainly neither the perpetrators nor the victims of the dreadful and worsening weather of Britain's social climate are exclusively of either foreign or native-born extraction. If not at all an exclusive cause of such societal de-evolution, unlimited immigration has certainly played a major part and has most certainly been no cure.
Nevertheless, Enoch Powell very accurately predicted the conditions that would indeed be found in the England in whose service he spent most of his adult life, just four decades after he spoke them. I do not know whether to be glad he did not live to see that result in this century, or to prefer to have his leadership still with us.
To that, in less than a decade....
I think the numbers aren't that bad yet, more like a dozen to one- still pretty miserable. But too, so are some of the unsolved deaths of those who've picked the wrong victims frequently just added to the statistics, since those who previously would have forthrightly reported the incident now see the laws and those who enforce them as no longer servants of the people, but simply machinery of the state, meant to grind the People down.
And in the rural spots, much of that hasn't permeated yet. I recall that when Thomas Edward Lawrence *of Arabia's* home cottage at Clouds Hill was inventoried, not only were his personal handguns still loaded and functional, but so too was a Lewis *light* .303 machine gun and ready 47-round drum magazines, ready for solving social problems by the dozens.
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