Postie stops theft

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A POSTMAN who has served the Devizes community for more than 20 years has spoken of his ‘natural instinct to protect others’ after he tackled and stopped a suspected thief in the Brittox.

Michael Kelly, 44, was walking back from his lunch break when he heard a commotion coming from the Vodafone shop last Wednesday (Dec 6) afternoon.

The postman, who joined the Royal Mail when he was 24, saw two people burst out of the store followed by a shop worker, who was shouting for them to be stopped.

Mr Kelly ran after the one of them, a youth, eventually tripping him up and stopping him from making an escape.

Police then arrived at the scene, just outside Greggs Bakery, where he was arrested and later charged with attempted theft and theft.

Mr Kelly described how he wanted to try to help prevent a crime taking place, at the same time as protecting his heavily pregnant friend.

Mr Kelly said: “I was with my friend and his girlfriend, who was heavily pregnant.

“She was there with me so I didn’t want anything to happen to her; I didn’t want anyone to bump into her, as she is due on December 15. There was an instinctive reaction.

“I was on my way back from having some lunch when I saw there was something not quite right.

“I looked up and saw two men running out of the Vodafone shop and behind them was someone who I think was the manager shouting to stop them because they had stolen a phone.

“Once I stopped the man, there was no chance I was letting him go.

“No one else was helping, which I found very surprising. It’s not the type of thing you come across every day.

“When we got back my friend told my manager, but I would hope that anyone would do the same thing.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: “Police were called to Little Brittox, at 2.20pm on December 6, 2017, to a report of shoplifting. A 14-year-old boy has been charged with attempted theft and theft and has been released on conditional bail to appear at Salisbury Youth Court on January 11.”

Mr Kelly added that in 20 years working as a postman, delivering in the villages of Littleton Panell and Little Cheverell, he had never seen anything like it before and did not believe either of the youths were local because he did not recognise them.