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NOT getting away with it: Have- a-go hero Tim Craig chased a thief for 40 minutes around the streets of Ashton
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Brave Tim tackles sat-nav thief
25/ 6/2008
A HAVE-a-go hero captured a thief, who stole his sat-nav from his van, after a 40-minute chase.
Tim Craig, 32, parked on Latchford Street, Ashton and nipped into the Butty Box on Oldham Road to grab a sandwich on Wednesday. While inside a yob smashed his passenger window and stole the equipment.
It is the FOURTH sat-nav the dad-of-one has had pinched in two years.
Tim, a bathroom fitter, said: "Realising the culprit mustn’t be far away, I began scouring the streets and seconds later saw a man on Elgin Street with a suspicious bulge under his shellsuit top."
He confronted the man who fled along Latchford Street and across Christ Church graveyard. Tim gave chase in his van and a taxi driver also joined the pursuit. With the help of other motorists they tracked the thief up Taunton Road, down Knowle Avenue and along Ullswater Avenue and headed him off. Cornered, he threw the sat-nav at the taxi driver and ran off.
Tim, of Harmol Grove, Ashton said: "I’d got it back, but I hadn’t finished with him so I gave chase on foot. He fled down Rydal Grove, a cul-de-sac. With nowhere to go, he hurdled through three back gardens before I collared him. After a brief struggle I overpowered him, pinned him over a wall and told him I was making a citizen’s arrest. I rang 999, but while I was on the phone he wriggled free. I jumped back in the van and followed him again. I was directing the police at the same time. He was tiring so I just kept him in sight. He managed to get to King George’s playing fields and thought he was safe because I couldn’t follow him in the van."
But the police were waiting at the other exit with a pair of handcuffs.
Tim said: "Looking back, he could have had a knife, but I was determined to bring him to justice."
Wife Sarah, 30, said: "I was really chuffed, more people should do it."
A 21-year-old man will appear before Tameside magistrates on 3 July charged with theft, fraud and breaching
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27/06/2008 at 09:10