A FATHER-OF-TWO has told how he was attacked by a burglar after confronting him near his home.

Barefoot and wearing pyjamas, Chris Miles set off in pursuit of the intruder after hearing his front door open as he lay awake in the early hours.

When he found the burglar hiding in his neighbour’s garden, Mr Miles, 40, challenged him and a struggle broke out as he tried to restrain the offender until the police arrived. But Lee Dennis Yeomans, 38, a man with a record of violence and theft, managed to get away after inflicting a serious groin injury on Mr Miles. York Crown Court heard how Yeomans, of Bramham Road, Chapelfields, then rang 999, claiming his victim had assaulted him.

Even after he was arrested and charged, Yeomans stood by his false story, forcing Mr Miles to give evidence at a trial.

In court, Yeomans told the jury he had got lost when his car broke down and happened to be walking past Mr Miles’ house when the householder ran out of his property “ranting and raving” and mistakenly accused him of burgling his house. But the jurors did not believe his tale and convicted Yeomans of attempted burglary and wounding with intent to resist arrest.

The wounding charge carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and the Recorder of York, Judge Stephen Ashurst, told Yeomans to expect a lengthy jail term.

Mr Miles, who lives in Copmanthorpe with his wife, Nicky, and two young children, told The Press after the trial: “I can’t believe he would have the audacity to think anybody would just go out in to the street in the middle of the night in their pyjamas and attack somebody. The longer his sentence the better, I think it should be life.”

Mr Miles, a self-employed joiner, said they had accidentally left the front door unlocked after packing up the car the previous evening to leave early in the morning to catch a flight for a family holiday in Spain.

He said it was a stroke of luck his three-year-old daughter had woken him up at 1.30am and he was still awake when Yeomans opened the front door.

“I jumped out of bed wondering what was happening,” he said. “I ran down the stairs to the front door and saw him running out of the gate, turning right. I gave chase thinking we had just been burgled and he had taken all our stuff. It was just instinct to go after him.

“When I got to the gate I couldn’t see anybody running down the road, so I looked round into our neighbour’s front garden and saw him hiding.

“I said, ‘what are you doing?’ and he didn’t reply. I asked him again and he said he was looking for his dog.

“I said, ‘no you’re not, you just tried to get into my house’. I then tried to restrain him and we started wrestling about.

“I had him pinned down on the floor and managed to drag him to the front door so I could bang on it to wake our neighbour, but he still didn’t hear, so I reached up to ring the door bell.”

When his neighbour eventually heard the commotion and came to the window, he alerted the police – but Yeomans managed to get away before they arrived.

Mr Miles said he was taken to York Hospital to have his groin injury stitched up – and the family then made a mad dash to Manchester Airport, arriving ten minutes before check-out closed.