Top chef wakes to burglar in his house and detains him for 20 minutes until police arrive
The chef, who has cooked private meals for a top British footballer, said a mixture of anger management classes and MMA training kept him calm
A top chef who has cooked privately for a top Premier League footballer was woken to his house being burgled.
Lee Skeet said a mixture of anger management training, as well as his grounding in mixed martial arts (MMA), kept him from "laying into" the man, who had rummaged through his home and taken around £400 in cash.
Lee recounted the chilling moment he woke at around 6am to realise there was a burglar in his house in the upmarket area of Pontcanna in Cardiff. He said he was startled awake by the chilling sound of footsteps going down the stairs.
Lee, who is known for his work at the Cardiff restaurants Jackson's and Cora, knew he was supposed to be alone in the house as neither his children nor his partner were home. He waited until the noise stopped before venturing out of his bedroom to investigate.
Reaching the ground floor, he discovered his front door wide open and approximately £400 missing from his kitchen. Recalling the unsettling event, he said: "It was around 6am on Monday and I could hear someone outside the door. You know when you wake up and it takes a second to get your bearings?"
After quickly ruling out the possibility of it being his children or partner it dawned on him that he had been burgled, reports Wales Online.
"I realised it couldn't be the kids because they're away and it couldn't be my partner because she wasn't with me the night before. It dawned on me then that I'd been burgled. I went downstairs and realised a load of cash had been taken and both my front doors were wide open," said Lee, whose entire Cora restaurant was booked out by footballer Aaron Ramsey in 2022 so he could have a private Valentine's meal with his wife, Colleen.
Ramsey spent years at Arsenal and Juventus before returning to boyhood club Cardiff City. He is the captain of the Wales national football team.
Lee said that once he confirmed the intruder had left, he decided to try and track him down.
"Once I realised there was no-one in the house I went outside and saw the guy about 50m away ducking into someone else's garden," he said.
"It was 6am so there was no-one else around. I walked up carefully and crept up. I didn't know if he had a knife on him so I was sort of assessing the situation. I could see him sitting on a patio counting money and I was close enough to notice the money was from a country I'd recently been to so it was a bit circumstantial."
He went on: "He had his back to me and I walked up to him and asked him what he was doing. He jumped out of his skin. He said he lived there but I told him I knew he'd just been in my house. I knew he was going nowhere he looked terrified.
"I wanted to lay into him but I was quite restrained. I just asked him why he was doing this and that he'd made a big mistake. The neighbours heard us and came out and called the police. I told him to not move until the police arrived and he didn't.
"I was standing next to him for about 20 minutes until the police got there. It was awkward. I felt sorry for him a bit. He started telling me stuff about his life and why he was doing that kind of thing and I did start to empathise with him a bit."
Lee stated that six police officers arrived and the man was arrested: "It was odd because he'd been pretty quiet but as soon as the police got there he became quite mouthy and the police had to get involved."
He added: "It was a strange experience. A year ago I'd have beaten him up but anger management coupled with MMA stopped me. I can't express enough what training in MMA can do for your confidence."
A South Wales Police spokesperson reported: "Police were called to a report of burglary in Cathedral Road at 6.55am on Monday, August 12. Officers arrived within six minutes of the call and a man was arrested at the scene. Shaun Powell, 48, from Bristol, has been charged with burglary. He appeared at Cardiff Magistrates' Court on Tuesday, August 13 and was remanded in custody."
On Friday, September 13, Powell admitted guilt to the burglary charges. His sentencing is now penned for Friday, September 20.
