A shopkeeper beat-up a burglar who fell through his roof – and has hit out at police for arresting him.
Ravinder ‘Bobby’ Singh says he should have been called a “hero and held up on people’s shoulders” after subduing thief Jason Urwin, 51.
The dad-of-three, 43, was instead detained in "broad daylight" the day after the incident at his corner shop Ennis Square Store in Redcar, North Yorkshire.
Bobby has relived the dramatic moments he and his friends, including close pal and employee Sukhwinder Singh, 30, had to fight thief Urwin “in self defence” at 3am on November 2, 2021.
The thief fell through the ceiling of the Premier store, causing £6,000-worth of damage, according to the shopkeeper.
Bobby, who’s originally from Punjab, India, told YorkshireLive: “We caught him and we had a man to man fight. Me and this lad, one of my employees, we beat him up.
“And the next day we got arrested! I said to the police that in the country and town I’m from, in India, I would have been the hero and the next day I would be held up on people’s shoulders! I’m not the bad guy.”
He had decided to stake out his own shop as Urwin had been seen removing ceiling tiles from the roof and nabbing spirits the previous night.
The shopkeeper was determined to catch Urwin red-handed, so spent the night on the shop floor with his pals, each in sleeping bags.
They attached a kitchen knife onto a mop so they could loosen the ceiling tiles Urwin was resting on when he arrived. When Urwin eventually arrived at about 3am, he saw Bobby on the floor and he tried to escape.
The shopkeeper smashed the tiles with the make-shift mop device and Urwin came crashing down on the shopfloor with a heavy thud. Bobby says a fight broke out and he had to punch Urwin in the face, as he feared for his own safety.
Bobby said: “We had prepared for all this but we didn’t expect it to end up like that. He was a strong lad. Then it was a bit scary because I’d never been through this sort of thing before. Everything happened very quickly.
“If he was calm, we wouldn’t have done any of that. I had to hit him in his head. He was bleeding already so we don’t even know if the injuries he got were from us or falling down.”
Bobby and Sukhwinder then tied Urwin up in cable ties and called Cleveland Police. Bobby said the police only took about five minutes to arrive.
But then the following day, officers returned and cuffed Bobby in front of his customers. He was then taken to a cell where he was made to wait for five hours.
Bobby said: “I got arrested in broad daylight and people saw and started making rumours that I was either into drugs, selling dodgy cigarettes or have a cannabis farm above the shop – those kinds of things.
“When I was in Sainsbury’s, I heard somebody saying they were going to smash my shop or drive into it. It was a stressful time. Mentally disturbing. My wife was very worried.
“When I told people on Facebook what happened, people were backing me up. I’m a good community member and the local postmaster.”
Thief Urwin was convicted for burglary and later sentenced by the court.
A spokesperson for Cleveland Police said: “Cleveland Police responded to a report of burglary in the early hours of November 2, 2021.
"A 51-year-old man was arrested and later charged with burglary and he appeared at Teesside Magistrates Court on 22nd November 2021.
"He was later convicted and sentenced by the court.
“Three men aged 22, 30 and 42 were arrested on suspicion of assault in connection with the incident after a man suffered injuries during the incident. All three were later released without charge.”
In 2022, Urwin reoffended and pleaded guilty after being charged with attempted theft from of a van in Redcar, reports Teesside Live.
Urwin said he’d been pressured to smash a van window with a pick.
He was ordered to pay £200 to the victim, after telling the court he’d turned his life around following many years of being a drug addict.
