BY CRONAN SCANLON
A CASTLEFIN pensioner is being hailed a hero, after he bravely fought off an armed gang who tried to rob him.
Brian Sillery (65) had just finished up work at the workshop to the rear of his house at Drumdoit, Castlefin, on Thursday evening, when the drama began.
He was washing his hands at around 5.30pm when he looked around to find a masked man pointing a hand gun directly at him. Brian describes his occupation as the, "research and development of commercial vehicles".
"A man suddenly appeared at the door pointing a gun at me in the firing position," Bryan explained.
"He shouted 'where's the money' and I just lost it. He fired the gun and it jammed, so I knocked it (the gun) up in the air. Then, another man came at me with an iron bar. I took it off him and got stuck in to the three of them.
"I was going to finish off one of them who was lying on the ground but I had still soap on my hands and I let the bar slip," he said.
During the struggle, Brian managed to pull the mask off the gun man and is convinced he has made a "positive ID". He claims the gunman was from Strabane.
Brian went on to explain what happened next: "They then panicked and ran to a waiting car out on the road. I picked up the bar and ran after them and put it through the back window of the car as they were driving off".
The Vauxhall Astra car was later found burned out in Strabane and gardai sealed off the area around Brian's house to carry out a detailed forensic examination. A spokesman for the local garda station said they were following a "number of" lines of inquiry.
Brian said he was never afraid during the incident and said he would do it all again.
"I'm just upset that these bastards thought they could get away with what they like," he said.
"They would have had to shoot me to stop me. People like that are scum and should be put away for a long time".
Meanwhile, Brian said that more people should take a stand in similar situations and has called on members of the public to "back the forces of law and order" on both sides of the border. He also believes the same gang were involved in a number of armed robberies in the area recently.
"We have got a new Seargent here in Castlefin (Joe Dorrian) and a new judge, Desmond Zaidan, in Letterkenny. They both need the support of the people to get scum like these boys off our streets," Brian said.
"Everyone can play their part in supporting law and order and without Judge Zaidan we would be back in the doldrums again. The only people that should be afraid of Judge Zaidan and the garda are criminals".
Brian says he has been receiving tonnes of calls from well-wishers all weekend and adds that anyone who thinks he is mad is "probably right".
"A lot of people should take inspiration from this," he concluded.
