- John Blanchard was sacked by a waste management firm in Hull in September
- He stole boss Oliver Jones-Lee’s house keys from his car and raided property
- Boss came home to find former employee ransacking house and tackled him
- He disarmed him and held him until police arrived. Blanchard is now in jail
The manager of a waste firm bravely disarmed a knife-wielding ex-employee who raided his home hours after being sacked.
Oliver Jones-Lee found disgruntled former worker John Blanchard ransacking his home in Hull following his departure from waste management firm The Rubbish Man.
Sacked Blanchard had stolen his boss’s house keys from his car and went to smash up his home before Mr Jones-Lee worked out what had happened and confronted him.
Blanchard had grabbed a knife from Mr Jones-Lee’s kitchen but was disarmed by his former boss, who then handed him over to police.
Oliver Jones-Lee disarmed disgruntled former employee John Blanchard, who raided his former manager’s home after he was sacked from a waste management firm
Mr Jones-Lee said: ‘I was so angry. I grabbed hold of John and he was just obnoxious and horrible and threatening me.
‘He had been done for carrying knives previously and he said “you know what I am capable of”, thinking he was real smart.
‘Then he went towards the back of his trousers but I grabbed hold of his hand and pulled the knife away from him.
‘I pinned him on the floor and he was knocked out cold for half an hour.
‘He was in my house and he had already annoyed me, and the knife was the icing on the cake for me to think you are not getting away with anything else.
‘No one comes into my house and takes my stuff.’
Mr Jones-Lee said the sight of Blanchard threatening him in his own home made him furious
Blanchard has since pleaded guilty to burglary and was jailed for 32 months.
Another man Daniel Stephenson, who assisted in the raid, was given a two-year community order.
Describing former-employee Blanchard, Mr Jones-Lee added: ‘He is just a nasty piece of work. He always goes around threatening people.
‘He has done this to me before but I’ve always shrugged them off. He gets off his face on drugs and threatens you.
‘I’ve always taken him as an idiot but this time he took it one step too far. I want to name and shame him and I want people to realise what a nasty man he is.
‘People need to know what he is like so he doesn’t target anybody else in the future.’
Mr Jones-Lee returned to his home in this street in Hull to find Blanchard armed with a knife