By Ralph Barnett

ARBROATH SHERIFF Court heard yesterday how a 48-year-old Montrose man, who found a man almost half his age stealing from his house, successfully detained the thief and managed to disarm him when he lunged at him with a large kitchen knife.

The court was told that drug addict Gareth Edward John Harris, who had been released on licence from prison in Aberdeen only two weeks before the offence, had been caught in Gary Thomson’s home in the act of rifling through Mr Thomson’s wife’s handbag.

Harris, described as a prisoner at Perth, had previously admitted that on July 21, at the Thomsons’ house in Montrose High Street, he assaulted Mr Thomson by struggling with him and attempting to strike him on the body with a knife, and doing so while on bail.

He had also admitted that on July 21, at the house he stole a quantity of cigarettes, a store card, a passport, a set of darts, a watch and an airline boarding pass, also while on bail.

The court was told Mr Thomson was working on scaffolding outside his house shortly after 6pm that day when Harris stopped and asked first if he wanted to buy some lager and then if he wanted a labourer for the day.

Mr Thomson declined both offers but, some 15 minutes later, his suspicions were aroused when he made to go indoors and found his front door was lying open.

On hearing a noise from the bedroom, he investigated and found Harris rummaging through his wife’s handbag.

Mr Thomson took hold of Harris and walked him out of the bedroom and, on finding him in possession of the items he had stolen, led him to the kitchen to call the police.

Depute fiscal Ann Hart told the court, “Mr Thomson got as far as asking for the police when he saw that Harris had removed a large kitchen knife from a knife block and, when told to put it down, Harris said, ‘Get out of my way or I’ll f****** stab you.’

“Harris’ exit from the kitchen was being prevented by Mr Thomson standing in the doorway but Harris then lunged towards Mr Thomson, who moved and the knife struck the kitchen wall, leaving a gouge in the wall.”

Ms Hart said, “Mr Thomson grabbed Harris and threw him against the wall to try to release the knife from his grip and was successful in grabbing the knife and throwing it into a corner of the kitchen.

“A struggle then took place, at which point Mr Thomson’s wife Annette entered the room and saw the struggle.

“Mrs Thomson got on the telephone, which was hanging from the wall with the police control room still on the line, and police officers quickly attended to find Harris being restrained by the Thomsons, who were sitting on him.

“As he was arrested Harris continually stated, ‘I’m sorry...I didn’t mean it.’

Defence solicitor Nick Markowski said his client had served 22 custodial sentences and was a “model prisoner” but that he was in “very real danger of becoming institutionalised and unable to deal with freedom.”

Mr Markowski said Harris had been unable to obtain his methadone prescription in Aberdeen after being released from a lengthy prison sentence imposed for house-breaking and had begun abusing heroin and crack cocaine before being thrown out of the homeless hostel in which he was living and being arrested for shop- lifting.

Harris, he said, had then made his way back to Montrose where he was looking for a guest house he had previously stayed in with his brother, but instead found the Thomsons’ house.

Mr Markowski said Harris realised he was lucky not to have been facing a more serious charge and commented, “Mr Thomson appears to have been a fairly fit individual and it was fairly brave of him to restrain and detain my client.”

Sheriff Norrie Stein, who described Mr Thomson’s actions as “remarkable,” told Harris that he would be jailed for 20 months for the theft and the assault on Mr Thomson but that this period would only start once he had served the outstanding 580 days of the sentence he had been released on licence from.

On his eventual release, Harris will also be supervised for a further 10 months and the sheriff told him, “You say you want help, but if you don’t take that help you will continue to be in and out of prison and that is no life.”

Last night Mr Thomson said, “The best thing I did was get him through to the kitchen and make the phone call because the police were able to find out where it was coming from, and they would have heard what was going on after I dropped the phone.”

The couple have not dwelt on the consequences, which might have resulted after Harris grabbed the knife but the offshore worker said he would react in the same manner again if faced with a similar scenario.

“What do you do? Do you just let him walk out with your stuff?” he said. “Upstairs he said to me ‘hit me and throw me out’ but I was just determined to make sure he didn’t get away with any of our stuff.”

Of yesterday’s sentence, Mr Thomson said “It’s ok as long as it gets him off the streets and maybe they’ll try to give him some help.”