TWO men trapped a carjacker inside a vehicle after he had targeted an 86-year-old man.

Barrie Taylor and Jim Marland pinned the teenager down inside the pensioner’s Audi and threw away one of his trainers so that he could not run off.

Oliver Crompton and his brother Jamie were trying to steal the man’s car when the neighbours were passing by.

The thieves were ripping the keys from their shocked victim’s hand when Mr Taylor, aged 58, and his wife Kath, aged 57, arrived.

“We heard a commotion and thought it was two lads having a fight,” said Mr Taylor, who then realised the men were robbing his neighbour.

The older attacker ran off when Mr Taylor shouted. He said: “I opened the door and grabbed the younger one by the scruff of the neck. He was kicking and screaming and trying to get out.”

Mrs Taylor called the police and as her husband held Crompton down another neighbour, Jim Marland and his wife Sheila stopped to help.

While 69-year-old Mrs Marland comforted the shaken pensioner her 70-year-old husband ran to help Mr Taylor.

Mr Marland said: “I held on to the lad’s legs and pulled off one of his trainers and threw it into a bush. I thought that would slow him down a bit.”

Mr Marland held a car door shut to stop Crompton escaping and Mr Taylor, who still had hold of the teenager, kicked the robber’s mobile phone under the vehicle.

“I was just determined that I was going to keep hold of him until the police came,” said Mr Taylor.

“I wasn’t frightened or anything at the time. I was just angry. When I look back, it might not have been the best idea.”

At Bolton Crown Court this week 18-year-old Oliver Crompton was handed a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to robbery, two counts of assault and possessing cannabis.

His older brother, Jamie, aged 21, is due to be sentenced at Preston Crown Court later this month.

Virginia Hayton, prosecuting, told the court that the elderly victim was leaving his Bromley Cross home on October 23 last year when he saw two men acting suspiciously near the house. The pensioner turned his car around and went back.

But as he got out of his car the Crompton brothers approached him on the driveway and demanded, ‘Give me your keys’.

After the neighbours stepped in to help, Jamie Crompton reappeared to rescue his brother.

Mr Taylor said: “He kicked me in the stomach. I think the pair of them laid into me for a few seconds and then ran off.”

The Marlands and Taylors handed over the phone and trainer to police, who also took away the Audi for forensic tests and the Crompton brothers, of Ainsworth Lane, Bolton, were arrested a short time later.

Sales manager Mr Taylor says he has no regrets about jumping to help the pensioner.

“I was only doing what other people would have done — I acted on instinct,” he said.

“I would do the same again. I wouldn’t class myself as a hero.”

The same sentiment was expressed by Mr Marland.

“I’m not a hero — I was just doing what everyone would do,” he said.

“If they had had knives it could have turned out differently but I couldn’t walk past when something like that was going on.”

Oliver Crompton was due to be sentenced on April 21, but the Honorary Recorder of Bolton Judge Timothy Clayson deferred his sentence until this week.

Kimberley Morton, defending, told the court that, in the past six months, Crompton has been working, is living independently and has stayed out of trouble.

Judge Clayson warned the teenager that if he had not responded so well he could have been facing three or four years behind bars.

“This was a very unpleasant robbery on an extremely vulnerable, elderly man,” he said.

“It is just the sort of thing you never want to hear of.”

Crompton was sentenced to 10 months in a young offenders’ institution, suspended for a year and must participate in 20 days of rehabilitation activities.

“He has shown that he is capable of living a responsible life,” said Judge Clayson.