Me and my pal stopped a drug dealer raiding our shop but we were arrested for assault
TWO shop workers collared a drug-addict raider — and were arrested for assault.
Ravinder “Bob” Singh, 40, and pal Sukhwinder Singh, 30, are waiting to hear if they will be charged.
Raider Jason Urwin was spared jail after admitting burglary.
Angry Bob, 40, said: “I’m not the bad man, I’m the man who caught the bad man.
“I come from Punjab and if we’d caught a criminal there we’d have been praised as heroes. Here I get arrested and handcuffed.”
The pals had spent the night in sleeping bags to catch a thief nabbing spirits from the Premier store in Dormanstown, North Yorks.
At 3am Urwin, 50, removed ceiling tiles to get in from the next-door property.
The pair grabbed him and he fell causing £5,000 of damage and suffering cuts and bruises.
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Bob said: “I’d attached a kitchen knife to a broom handle and we used that to bring him down. He wasn’t stabbed. That was never the intention.
“He must have fallen 13ft. He was a strong guy and was struggling to get free.
“I told the police that we hit him a couple of times to stop him struggling. But it was self-defence. How can that be unreasonable?”
Bob went home while police stayed at the shop.
When he returned he was cuffed in front of customers and taken to the cells for five hours, he says.
Urwin, of Redcar, had 43 convictions for 143 offences in more than 25 years.
He pleaded guilty at Teesside crown court and got a year’s jail suspended for 12 months, with a drug testing order.
Cleveland Police were contacted.