'Tis a shame a good, old-fashioned handshake wouldn't do.
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.
Then I come out of my fantasy and I've missed half of what was in the article. ;^)
Perhaps we could give them about 20 tatoos of Muhommad all over thier body and them drop them off in downtown Tehran...
'Tis a shame a good, old-fashioned handshake wouldn't do.
Why didn't he just shoot and kill them?
Right. Especially when you know they will never get the death penalty, wouldn't you want to kill the animals who held a knife to your daughter's throat? How could you leave such vermin alive?
Fake gun.
Is a ‘knuckle duster’ brass knuckles? Ouch!
Outnumbered 3 to 1 in a surprise attack by armed villains, the man fights back and wins.
Yet you criticize him.
Methinks you aren’t the sharpest tack in the box.
Not criticizing. Wasn't even responding to you. I've been in a similar but much less violent situation. I wished I had a gun. Perp went to jail, but later hurt someone else. I always felt if I had killed him then, other victims would have been spared his evil. The justice system routinely fails when dealing with violent criminals. They never rehabilitate, they only get worse.
Must be right. Lots of them in Britain.
I've read the replies above stating that the gun was fake. However, if the gun had been real, and the homeowner had used it to kill his assailant, there is a good chance that he would have been charged with murder under British law. A few years ago a British farmer named Tony Martin was convicted of attempted murder for shooting a burglar who had broken into his home(for the 2nd or 3rd time). He had been harassed by a gang of thugs for months, but when he defended his property, he went to prison. Britain has an astronomically high burglary rate, precisely because the robbers know that their victims are unarmed. Fair play to this man for defending himself!
Britain has an astronomically high burglary rate, precisely because the robbers know that their victims are unarmed. Fair play to this man for defending himself!.........
you mean the peasants can kill each other, but you just gotta know the fair princes and royals have men with GUNS to defend them....cause it’s just “different” for them, don’t you know.
Pathetic sheep island. Chances of going back to England ....zero. Most of the Irish are kick ass and can flat out have fun. Most of the really fun people from Great Britain I’ve met have been in Spain.
As far as self defense... that guy is a stud. 3 on 1 is a bad situation without a weapon. I think I’d keep a sword or bat around if I wasn’t able to keep a weapon. The last thing you want to use in a fight is your hands. I hope the other two decide that “Suicide is painless”.
The story says it was a fake gun.
It is literal. Prisoners can just walk out. ...of course, by doing so they get tossed in a real prison when caught. Sorta the low-tech equivalent of house arrest via monitoring device (yeah he can run off, but we’ll know when he does and toss him in a cage when we catch him).
Thanks for the clarification.
Everytime that I read about social dysfunction in England, I am remined of the movie “A Clockwork Orange”. The film was decades ahead of its time and much closer to the reality there now.
Maybe if they had midnight basketball. . .
The gun wasn't real.
same herein the the good ole USA. I volunteer at the local min/med security county/state lock up.
the min security side remeinds me more of an open college dorm than a correctional facility.most have work duty, many of which are off grounds and un monitored, with the prisoner returning daily on their own. only thing stopping them from walking away is an escape charge and loss of easy livin environment [as far as jails go]...
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