Grandad Ronald Bishop has relived the moment he fought off a heroin addict who broke into his home in Chippenham.

The 78-year-old former RAF serviceman was watching TV when Ryan Pratt, 26, broke in through the bedroom window, wielding a chisel and covering his face with a hankie.

“I was sat here and I saw the living room door open,” said Mr Bishop, of Westcroft. “And I wondered who the hell it was – I had the shock of my life.

“When he came in I knew who he was even though he had the handkerchief around his face.

“He said I owed him money, but I didn’t, and there was no way he was getting any from me.”

Pratt, 26, followed Mr Bishop to the bedroom, where his wife Elizabeth was asleep, and the pair had a physical confrontation in the passage.

“We started tangling and he left a mark on my shoulder where he cut me with something,” said Mr Bishop, who is partially blind and suffers from chest problems.

“But I said ‘I’m not having a whippersnapper like you directing me’ and saw him out.

“I’m an easy-going man until something happens, especially if it involves Elizabeth, and then I snap.”

When Mrs Bishop, 52, tried to call the police, Pratt grabbed the phone from her hand and moved to make off with it through the window.

The former nurse said: “I was so scared that when he came through the window I pretended to be asleep.

“I think he was out to harm us, and if Ronald hadn’t stayed up he would have.

“The whole thing must have lasted about 20 minutes but it felt like a lifetime.”

The couple have spoken out about their relief after Pratt was jailed by Swindon Crown Court for three years and two months after admitting burglary and theft.

Mrs Bishop said: “We have asked our housing association to move us from here so hopefully we will be gone by the time he gets out.”

Pratt had been put on a suspended sentence just a month before the incident for stabbing a man with tweezers.