Surveys have found that industrious recruiters take the shortest lunch breaks - just 15 minutes - but what these heroic consultants managed to do whilst grabbing a sarnie may surprise you.
Two consultants from Nottingham-based Elevate Recruitment and Training Consultants, stopped a thief in his tracks, who had swinded money from an elderly woman, on their way back to work. Justin Halpin, 30, Adam Hickman, 25, along with another man, managed to restrain the thug, Dragos Stoica, on a high street in Ruddington.
Halpin, from Daybrook, told The Nottingham Post why he intervened: "We were coming back onto the High Street and I noticed there was a very elderly lady with a zimmer frame who was coming up between two cars and she seemed very distressed.
"She was crying out and I didn’t understand at first. Then I managed to make out she was saying ‘Stop him’."
“It was quite clear there was some clamouring regarding some stolen money. I said [to Stoica], 'You’ve got to wait a moment so I can find out what this is about'. He seemed very casual and said there were no problems.”
A number of others gathered around the scene, accusing Stoica of stealing stolen money from the pensioner’s purse. Stoica asked the old lady for some change for a five-pound note, and managed to engage her in conversation and steal £156.
Halpin added: "We put our hands on his shoulder to restrain him slightly and then he tried to pull away quite aggressively. At which point I put him into a chicken wing lock position and brought him down. I put my foot into the back of his leg and brought him down in a controlled manner.”
Luckily, the lads’ intervention meant the old woman got her money back. She was a bit shaken up , but thankful, telling the boys that Stoica was a ‘naughty man’.
Stoica was arrested at the scene and charged later that day. He was sentenced to 36 weeks in prison, after pleading guilty to six thefts and two attempted thefts.
Detective Constable Simon Carter, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Stoica consistently targeted the elderly, taking advantage of their kind and vulnerable nature. One gentleman even went as far as inviting Stoica into his home to wait whilst he found some change for him.
“Whilst we would never suggest that members of the public put themselves in harm’s way, I want to say a massive thank you to the people who intervened in Ruddington on Tuesday and assisted in detaining the suspect until officers arrived. They are a great credit to their community.”
