UK: Feisty 90-Year-Old White Woman Rugby Tackles Foreign Thief

Manchester Evening News
March 20, 2014

Eda Marron was sitting doing a crossword in the living room when she heard her front door open
Eda Marron was sitting doing a crossword in the living room when she heard her front door open and saw the thief who spoke no English. It was very likely a gypsy as many of them have been caught doing this.

A feisty 90-year-old widow rugby-tackled a burglar after he brazenly walked into her house in broad daylight.

Eda Marron was sitting doing a crossword in the living room of her bungalow in Royton, Oldham, when she heard her front door open.

To her shock a hooded stranger appeared silently in the doorway – so, using her zimmer-frame to help, she grabbed him around the waist and tried to force him out of her house.

Eda suffers from a long-term muscle weakening disease called myasthenia gravis so is unable to walk unaided.

But she said she was ‘surprised’ rather than scared when she saw the burglar, adding: “I got my walker, walked up to him and said ‘who are you, what do you want?’, and he never spoke.

“Whether he can speak English or not, I don’t know, but he never said a word all the time he was here. I kept leaning on him to push him out and he wasn’t going to go.

“All of a sudden he turned around the corner to my bedroom – that’s where my bag was.

Royton, Oldham and Manchester from Crompton Moor
Royton, Oldham and Manchester from Crompton Moor.

“I kept hold of him and was leaning on him to push him. But he opened the door to go out and put the bag under his arm and pushed me.”

At this point Eda, who moved to Cumberland Drive from Cambridge 15 years ago, fell to the floor, leaving both her knees badly bruised and her hand cut, probably from his belt or keys.

“I was screaming at the top of my voice and nobody came,” she said.

“He just ran away – I don’t know what way he went. I had a job to get up and when I got up my hand was bleeding and all the blood was running down my arm.

“I was in such a state. From now on I’m going to lock my door.”

The man got away with Eda’s handbag and her blue badge, but luckily her purse was not inside.

Police are appealing for the public’s help to catch the intruder, described as slim, white, wearing a dark hoodie and jeans and around 5ft or 5ft 1in tall.