2009 Winner
Michael Seery
Pensioner Michael was waiting for friends in his local betting shop when the afternoon took a dramatic and violent turn.
The partially-sighted ex-policeman, 69, was the only customer when a man in a crash-helmet charged in, wielding a knife. He smashed the windows at the front desk and ordered the two terrified female cashiers to hand over their takings.
Michael, who has long-term ill health, could not stand by. He picked up a chair and threw it at the robber. As they tussled, Michael was slashed in the thigh and stabbed in the back. But he did dislodge the man’s helmet, and the cashiers recognised him. Once the ordeal was over, grandad Michael, married to
Valerie, 67, put the shop back in order. Then he was taken to hospital where he had surgery on the stab wound in his thigh.
Michael, of Farnborough, Hants, said: “The screams of the cashiers set me off. I thought, ‘It isn’t right’.”
Dc Ian Cullen described Michael as “the bravest men I’ve ever met”. The robber was jailed for nine years.