A retired police officer used his old handcuffs to detain an alleged intruder who he found in the garden of his home in Kingskerswell.
Robert Campbell went outside at 4.30 am after a burglar alarm went off in a large tent which was being used to story building supplies during renovation work.
He went out to investigate and grabbed a man who he saw trying to get through metal fencing at the edge of his garden.
The man he grabbed was Stephen Snell, aged 58, who he detained using a pair of handcuffs which he still had in his home from when he worked in the police.
Mr Campbell’s wife is also a former police officer and she took the handcuffs into the garden after dialing 999 and calling the police, who arrived and arrested Snell.
Snell, of Carswells, Kingskerswell, denies burgling the temporary outbuilding at the house in Lyndhurst Road, Kingskerswell on July 17 last year.
Mr Gordon Richings, prosecuting, said Mr Campbell installed an alarm in the large canvas structure in his garden because it was insecure with a zip rather than a door.
He and his wife were woken by the alarm at 4.30 am and looked out the window to see the light from a torch inside the tent. He went out and saw Snell beside metal fencing which secured the site area.
Police were called and Snell said he had been out walking and gone into the garden to look at a skip which he believed to be there, with the intention of asking the owners later if he wanted to take anything.
Mr Richings said the story had to be untrue because there had not been a skip in the garden for four months before the incident.