Sutton Coldfield pensioner's hand 'skinned' by burglars Published duration 6 March 2019

image copyright Family handout image caption Arthur Gumbley, who walked with a stick, died about three weeks after the break-in

An 87-year-old man died after his right hand was "skinned" by burglars who broke his ribs and punched him in the face, a court heard.

Arthur Gumbley approached the two intruders in his Sutton Coldfield home in "a friendly way".

But he was attacked and had skin torn from his hand as a watch was pulled from his wrist, Stafford Crown Court heard.

Jason Wilsher, 20, from Leicestershire, denies murder and conspiracy to rob.

Mr Gumbley died about three weeks after the break-in in November 2017 as a result of his injuries, which included four rib fractures.

It is alleged Mr Wilsher, of Barlestone Road, Bagworth, was one of the burglars in the Little Aston raid and stole a watch and jewellery.

'Immediate violence'

Prosecutor Jacob Hallam QC said: "Hearing, from where he was in his home, the noise of movement somewhere else in it, Mr Gumbley got to his feet and made his way into the hallway.

"He asked them, in what he described to the police as a friendly way, what they wanted. The response he met with was immediate violence."

The prosecutor said the victim was "at some stage kicked when he was lying on the floor".

Mr Hallam said Mr Wilsher's DNA was recovered from the house.

Telephone analysis also linked him to a mobile handset "central to the case", the prosecutor alleged.

'Holding his hand'

Susan Boys, Mr Gumbley's daughter, said she rushed to her father's home after she made a routine call to check on him.

She told the court how there was blood "all over the walls" in the hallway.

"Everything was all tipped up, all over the place. I was just shouting, 'Dad, Dad'," she said.

"He was in the living room on the floor. He was sitting by the glass table on the floor in a pool of blood.

"He was holding his hand - his hand was just red. His eye was just a bulge of a black eye and there were cuts to his face."

The conspiracy to rob charge, between 18-26 November 2017, relates to another elderly man, living in the Creswell area of Derbyshire, suffering injuries at the hands of burglars.

The second victim told police he had his head banged on to the hearth of a fire four days after Mr Gumbley was attacked.

The trial continues.