Burglar found with TV

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 29

Burglar found with TV

A householder’s experience in martial arts was put to good use when he and his wife returned home to find their house had been burgled and the burglar was outside holding their portable television set.

Evidence during a preliminary hearing in the District Court yesterday was that the defendant, Erik Tyler Hynde, aged 24, unemployed, held a bayonet with a 20cm. blade against his body, hidden by the television set.

When the television set was grabbed from him, he wielded the bayonet in front of him.

He was disarmed by the house owner, shoulderthrown to the ground and held until the police arrived.

After the couple, whose house had been burgled, gave evidence Hynde pleaded guilty to a charge of assaulting Paul Neil James Barsby, while using the bayonet as a weapon. A charge of aggravated burglary of Mr and Mrs Barsby’s house in Knowles Street, St Albans, by having the bayonet during the burglary was dismissed at the request of the prosecutor, Sergeant K. J. Morrison, and this was substituted by a reduced charge of burglary of the house.

Hynde was remanded in custody for sentence in the District Court on the two charges on September 22.

Messrs E. S. F. Holland and W. G. Blair, Justices of the Peace, were on the Bench for the preliminary

hearing. Hynde was represented by Mr A. N. D. Garrett.

Prosecution evidence was that Mr Barsby and his wife, Alison May Barsby, arrived home at 8.30 p.m. on August 13 to find a bedroom and back door window had been broken, and entry gained to the house.

Mrs Barsby heard a "scuttling” sound from the side of the house and saw a man standing outside the house holding their portable television set. The couple approached him and Mrs Barsby grabbed the television set, and saw the bayonet held behind it. She warned her husband.

Mr Barsby said he grabbed Hynde’s • wrist, which held the knife, and threw him to the ground

with a shoulder-throw. At the same time, he grabbed the bayonet and threw it away as far as he could.

He then told Mrs Barsby to call the police. While on the ground, Hynde threatened, four times, to kill Mr Barsby. Cross-examined, he said he had been 18in to 2ft (45-60 cm away from the bayonet when it was brought down in a sideways movement. Hynde grabbed him while on the ground, but could not apply much pressure because of leather gloves he was wearing. He tried to remove these, and the witness saw he was wearing one of his wife’s rings.