Have-a-go hero wrestled high street handbag thief to the ground

A HAVE-A-GO hero jewellery dealer took down a serial thief who had stolen his wife’s handbag.

Giles Waite sprung into action and stopped Shaun McGuinness throwing a fire extinguisher through a shop window to escape, before pinning him to the floor until police arrived.

Giles, his wife Eli and friend Chris were moving items out of his Watches of Distinction jewellery shop on Lymington High Street into a nearby car last Thursday when McGuinness struck.

“As I was coming back to the shop this guy came up to me and said someone’s just stolen a lady’s handbag and he’s gone into that charity shop,” Giles told the A&T.

The man pointed Giles towards the nearby Dog’s Trust outlet, so he stormed in, accompanied by Chris, and confronted Shaun McGuinness – who was bent down behind the counter stashing something in a shopping bag.

“I walked in – and I suppose I was a bit grumpy – but I said to him what have you got in your bag?’”, Giles (54) said.

“He was defensive and said ‘I’ve got nothing’ and I repeated what I said and then he just said ‘I’m going’ and I said ‘No, you’re not’.

“The manageress of the shop then was getting a bit angsty as I think she thought I was just getting stroppy and then I said ‘You’ve got my wife’s handbag, you’ve just stole it’.

“He went to make an exit and I stood in front of the door and I managed to get my hands on his shopping bag and move it about slightly and could see that he had Eli’s handbag in the bottom and its handles were sticking out of the top.

“I then said ‘That’s it’ and he started saying ‘Sorry, I took it’ and ‘It was opportunist’ and ‘Let me go’ and he started getting angry before he then ran through the back of the shop and went upstairs and was going on about jumping out of the window. He smelt a little bit of alcohol.”

Giles, who lives locally, went on: “He could not get out so he started getting more and more angry and the police were a long time coming.

“Then he finally picked up a fire extinguisher and said ‘I’m putting it through the window and I’m going’ and he then tried to throw it, but luckily I grabbed his arm before he could put any force in to it.

“He was getting out of control, so I decked him. I held him to the floor until the police turned up.”

Meanwhile Chris held the shop door shut to ensure McGuinness could not escape.

“There were lots of people outside taking pictures and to be honest it was a bit like being in a goldfish bowl,” Giles recalled, adding that a young man he did not know offered help and stood inside the doorway to assist.

Giles said: “My wife was devastated by the incident. She is okay now. It was just absolute luck that guy saw it happen. He [McGuinness] moved so fast.”

A watch dealer for over 37 years, Giles said he had to tackle an offender once before when he was much younger. He met a man in a Heathrow hotel, who sprayed him with CS gas and made off with two expensive watches.

Giles ran after him and tackled him to the floor – which was witnessed by an off-duty police officer out jogging. It later transpired the offender was a well-known American jewellery thief and he was charged and subsequently deported.

That incident warned Giles about the perils of the jewellery trade and encouraged him to establish himself in a shop that features tight security, he stressed. His new Lymington High Street premises has numerous security features, he added.

Chris, a customer of his and close friend, agreed it was an “opportunistic theft”.

“It was very frightening to be honest,” the property investor said. “While this guy was an elderly looking man, he became violent.

“He really did not want to be arrested – from what I’ve heard since he is someone who has a lot of form and has stolen charity boxes. It’s just totally outrageous

“It was a nasty incident to witness and it could have been a lot worse,” Chris continued. “Giles showed extreme bravery in what he did. A lot of people would have let him go – and then this man would never have been arrested and never have gone to court and faced justice.

“But it ended well for the people involved. Eli got her handbag back, the bad guy got arrested and while the lady in the charity shop was shaken there wasn’t any damage caused that had to be sorted out. Someone who seems to target and thieve from shops was caught red-handed.”

After his arrest Shaun McGuinness (58), of Calmore Drive, Calmore, was charged with the theft of Eli’s handbag – which he admitted at Southampton Magistrates’ Court the following day.

After hearing about his previous record of offending, the Bench revoked a community order McGuinness had been given for stealing charity boxes from two Hythe shops in September and imposed a four-month jail sentence, suspended for a year

He was also told to pay £122 court costs.

Chris added: “People need to be made aware of this particular individual. They should know, in case they see him, he looks like an older man but is actually a dangerous individual.”