Daily Mail
January 6, 2014
Two thieves were caught red-handed when a schoolgirl called police from under a bed when they broke into her home.
Marcus Speirs, 32, and Richard Ansah, 29, broke in to the home in Erdington, Birmingham, by breaking down a back door. They then began searching the property for valuables.
But the burglars hadn’t realised a 13-year-old girl and her brother, nine, had run upstairs and grabbed a phone.
The quick-thinking teenager, who was alone in the house with her younger brother, hid under a bed and dialled 999 before Speirs spotted the siblings. When he did he threatened them with a garden hoe.
Police officers arrived at the family home within four minutes of the emergency call and arrested the pair.
Speirs, from Hockley, Birmingham, was charged with aggravated burglary whilst Ansah, from Sutton Coldfield, West Mids., was charged with burglary.
The pair were sentenced to nine years and four years in prison respectively at Birmingham Crown Court on December 20 after admitting the charges.