AN OAP previously targeted by Henry Vincent said the dead burglar "got what he deserved" and says he wants to shake Richard Osborn-Brooks' hand.
Cyril Goodearl, 78, spoke out to show solidarity with Mr Osborn-Brooks, also 78, who was confronted by Vincent in his Hither Green house.
Evening Standard Cyril Goodearl said he wants to shake the hand of the OAP who scuffled with burglar Henry Vincent
Mr Osborn-Brooks was arrested by detectives on suspicion of murder but has been released on bail pending further inquiries.
Mr Goodearl was the victim of a distraction theft after he was fooled by a woman - working with Vincent - who pretended she had been assaulted and needed help.
Speaking about Mr Osborn-Brooks, 78, Mr Goodearl said: "I would like to shake his hand.
"If I was in the same position I would have done exactly the same thing!"
Evening Standard The OAP said he would have done the same as Mr Osborn-Brooks
PA:Press Association Henry Vincent died following a scuffle with an OAP in his home
Mr Osborn-Brooks was arrested by detectives on suspicion of murder but has been released on bail pending further inquiries
In November 27 last year a woman knocked on Mr Goodearl's front door of his Georgian home in the pretty village of Farningham, Kent on the early afternoon.
The woman, looking distressed, told him she had been assaulted and was seeking refuge until a relative arrived.
The kind-hearted gentleman invited the woman into his Georgian home and asked for a glass of water.
Mr Goodearl, who is a retired hydraulic engineer, said: "She seemed to cheer up somewhat. While we were talking someone must've walked up the stairs and taken the jewellery box.
"Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Of course everyone has mobile phones now and she asked to use my home phone. And she seemed to cheer up probably aware that she had got in the house and the job was done.
"After about half an hour there was a bib out the front and she said that was her family coming to get her.
"We walked to the front door and she went out and got in to the front of a white van.
"There were two men with hoods up in the front. I didn't get to see their faces. And that was that.
"It was only a week later that the police contacted me and said they had found a jewellery box in a van which had been stolen."
It emerged today a relative of Vincent's wrote "the old b*****ds deserve everything they get" and "an OAP keeps ur bank balance at bay" as it emerged he had targeted a string of OAPS to scam and burgle.
Relative of burglar, Henry Vincent who was 'killed by OAP' is ANGRY pensioner is on bail
EPA Met Police confirmed that Henry suffered a fatal stab wound to the upper body
Moment paramedics try to revive burglar 'stabbed by OAP' as he lay dying in street after bungled raid
Mr Goodearl said many personal items from his brother and jewellery which belonged to his mum were stolen in the theft.
The pensioner said the traumatic incident had made him lose faith in people.
Asked how he felt about what happened to Vincent, he said: "Jolly good job! That's got rid of another bit of scum.
"I am all in favour of capital punishment. They should never have let him out of prison.
"It's good riddance and he got what he deserved."
VILLAIN: JUNKIE WHO PREYED ON THE ELDERLY THE burglar stabbed to death while breaking into the home of Richard Osborn-Brooks was a junkie criminal. Dad-of-four Henry Vincent, 37, had a long record for targeting elderly victims and served several jail sentences. He was said to be well known for carrying a screwdriver as a weapon. In 2009, he was jailed for six years after charging an OAP £72,000 to replace a single tile on his roof. Vincent, described in court as a drug addict, told the pensioner his roof joists were rotten and showed him maggots as proof. Police named Vincent in appeals about a burglary in October 2013 and a fraud in November 2016. And in November last year, he was sought over a distraction burglary in Farningham, Kent, when a 70-year-old man’s jewellery was stolen. The victim was tricked into letting a woman, who claimed to have been assaulted, into his home. A stolen white van pulled up outside, its horn was sounded and she left. Also wanted over that crime was Billy Jeeves, 28. He is suspected of being with Vincent on the night he was killed. Jeeves was one of three men caught trying to steal a car in St Mary Cray, South East London, while posing as policemen — unaware that the men in the car were plain-clothes officers. Seven relatives from Vincent’s large traveller family were jailed in October 2003 after conning pensioners out of £450,000. But last night his family asked to be left to grieve. A woman at the family home said: “Things have been twisted.” By RACHEL DALE, NEIL SYSON, CHRIS POLLARD and MIKE SULLIVAN
Today we reported how Vincent's cousin is angry Mr Osborn-Brooks is on bail.
Last night his family asked to be left to grieve and a woman at the family home said “things have been twisted", after it was reported dad-of-four Vincent, 37, had served several jail sentences.
It is understood he has targeted a string of pensioners to scam and burgle them out of hundreds of pounds.
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The white Ford Transit van was stolen on November 26.
A delivery driver reported the theft of his vehicle while he was working in the Swanley area.
He reported that as he was handing a parcel to a customer when a person entered the vehicle and drove it away.
Kent Police put out an appeal in January in which they said officers were keen to speak to Henry Vincent and another man named Billy Jeeves who they believe may have "important information" about the burglary and theft of the van.
The jewellery was recovered by police.
It is understood a woman was arrested by police in connection with the theft, and has been released on bail pending further inquiries.
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The death of Henry Vincent, a career criminal who died after being stabbed in a fight with a south-east London pensioner more than twice his age whose house he was trying to burgle, has unleashed violent public passions and arguments. Legally, the matter may be a simple one. Ever since the case of Tony Martin, the Norfolk farmer who shot in the back and killed a young thief in his isolated farmhouse in 1999, and served three years in prison for manslaughter after an outcry against his initial conviction for murder, the law has been successively rebalanced in the interests of homeowners and against intruders.
Householders are now entitled to fight back – and even to deploy “disproportionate force” – in self-defence if they are attacked in their own homes. Richard Osborn-Brooks, the 78-year-old pensioner involved in the fight, has been met by a wave of public sympathy, while the dead man, his family and associates, have all been the subjects of scorn and abuse from the papers. Any gang which preys on old people, as they did, deserves public obloquy as well as prison sentences. It’s difficult to imagine a crime that is more despicable and spreads more fear and distrust than stealing from pensioners. The instincts of the public in this case are entirely on the side of justice. But they are not the same thing as justice.
The rush of public sympathy and understanding for Mr Osborn-Brooks is not at all hard to appreciate or to sympathise with. If he did kill Vincent this will have been an entirely traumatic experience for him; even having to confront a burglar in the middle of the night is shocking enough for most people. But the rush of vicarious rage which has also greeted the story is a reminder of what the law and the criminal justice system stand for. Its measured deliberations ensure a balanced approach and protect us from our own most violent instincts. Vincent may well have deserved another long prison sentence, an exceptionally grim punishment in the present state of prisons. His death was, in a sense, a foreseeable consequence of his wicked and profoundly antisocial behaviour. Nonetheless, he did not deserve to die, as his family has pointed out, and had he stood trial for breaking into an old couple’s house he would not have been sentenced to death.
The passions aroused by this case are reminiscent of some of the tragic cases in the US, though fortunately without the racial angle which makes such episodes so very poisonous there. The easy availability of guns in the United States means that the American householder who feels threatened becomes a very much more dangerous person than a British pensioner. The result is not a safer country but a very much more dangerous one, with higher murder rates and much more fear and unease in the background of daily life.
Which brings us back to the tragic statistic that in the first months of this year the murder rate in London exceeds that of New York; and most of these killings have involved knives. The death of Henry Vincent was not a “knife crime” in the sense that the label is usually applied. But it is a reminder of how dangerous a stab wound can be, even when inflicted by a pensioner; and it should serve as a reminder of the urgency of stopping the use of knives as a means to settle any disputes. Cases such as this one are mercifully rare. Most crimes involving knives are not fatal; many are also morally much less clear. But this one should remind us that it is the law and its enforcement which exist to keep old and vulnerable people safe, not unofficial or vigilante violence.
Footage of Henry Vincent after he was stabbed by pensioner, Henry Osborn-Brooks. He was dumped on the sidewalk. Osborn-Brooks was arrested on suspicion of murder then released on bail.
A pensioner targeted in a distraction break-in linked to career criminal Henry Vincent, the intruder who was killed during an attempted burglary on Wednesday, said it was a "jolly good job."
Cyril Goodearl, 78, who was robbed by Henry Vincent at his home in the pretty village of Farningham, Kent, last November said he would like to shake the hand of Richard Osborn-Brooks, who is thought to have killed Vincent after being confronted by him at his home in south east London.
Mr Osborn-Brooks, also 78, was arrested by detectives on suspicion of murder but has been released on bail pending further inquiries.
Asked how he felt about what happened to Vincent, Mr Goodearl said: "Jolly good job! That's...
