A MAN who was tied up and robbed by his neighbour said he thought he was going to die. Michael Wilkinson, 65, was beaten for an hour-and-a-half by his neighbour Reece Dinsdale and his friend Dylan Coles.
Dinsdale's girlfriend, who still lives opposite Mr Wilkinson in a block of flats, this week sent him a letter apologising for the crime. The pair were jailed earlier this week for six years for the terrifying robbery, during which they kicked their victim, stamped on his head and beat him with a cosh.
Mr Wilkinson, a retired engineer, said: "I thought it was never going to end. They were hammering blows on me, it was punch after punch. I was shouting for help at the top of my voice.
"They just didn't let up. I ended up saying it didn't have to be that way, saying I would let them have what they wanted, but they didn't stop. I was trying to get to my feet and kicking my legs and that's when they tied me up.
"They got a cosh out and just started whacking me everywhere. They were kicking me, stamping on me and I thought 'I am going to be knocked out soon and might not wake up'."
Mr Wilkinson had loaned Dinsdale and his girlfriend, Molly, some furniture and had bought them food after they moved in weeks before the attack. In her letter to him, Molly wrote: "I am so so sorry, Mike. You were always so lovely."
Just hours before the robbery, Dinsdale had been drinking with Mr Wilkinson in his flat. He left to go to the shop, but did not return. At 1.20am the following morning, Mr Wilkinson was woken by a knock on his door. When he opened it, he was punched to the floor by the two masked robbers.
He said: "You can't get much lower than that. He accepted my hospitality and my charity. He smoked my cigarettes, drank my whisky and I cooked them food. I had loaned them some antique furniture because all they had was a mattress on the floor. I thought you should love thy neighbour, not half murder them."
The pair prised three rings from his fingers as he lay on the floor and stole a laptop, three watches and a camera. More than a month after the attack on July 17, Mr Wilkinson still has cuts and bruises on his legs where his ankles were bound.
"I was black and blue for more than two weeks," he said. "I still have a dressing on my leg and bruises on my chest and it has made me nervous. I sleep with one eye open now."
Dinsdale, 20, and Coles, 19, both admitted the robbery at Hull Crown Court. Coles was high on mephedrone – also known as M-Cat – at the time while Dinsdale was drunk.
Mr Wilkinson said he believes the pair should serve the full six-year sentences imposed on them by Judge Michael Mettyear.
He said: "What is the point in sentencing them for six years if they are only going to do three? I do think three years is a significant amount of time for them to be in prison, but I just wish they hadn't done it in the first place."
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