A CARETAKER has told how he escaped from a cellar after masked men locked him there while they raided the golf club where he works.

Les Smith, 57, had just locked up after working late at North Weald Golf Club and was returning to a caravan in the grounds when two men, armed with a crowbar and a knife, confronted him.

“They came up behind me,” he said. “I turned and noticed they had balaclavas on and my first reaction was to throw a punch.

“Once I saw the knife, I knew it was time to calm down.”

The men marched him to a side entrance, holding the crowbar behind him and the knife in front, before forcing him to open the door and demanding the key to the cellar beneath the bar.

He was pushed to the ground and the men tied his hands behind his back with a cable tie before stealing about £400 from the cellar and throwing him in.

“They said they’d come and get me, but I knew they wouldn’t and I was in there for about an hour,” he said.

“I was thinking ‘how am I going to get out of here’, but I was concerned, because they had the knife and I could hear them moving around still.”

Once the men had gone, he flattened the side of a pole used in the bar with a beer barrel.

He then used the pole to chisel the wooden door frame away from the bolt and open the door.

The men had taken his mobile phone, so he called the police from the club landline and they arrived shortly after midnight on Tuesday (May 22).

The men got away with a total of £3,000 from the cellar and the office safe, as well as silver golf trophies, and left Mr Smith badly shaken.

“I’m getting all sorts of emotions,” he said. “I think about what could've happened and it did worry me, because I’m here late some nights.”

He described the men as 25 to 30, one about 5ft 5ins with fair hair and the other about 5ft 10ins with dark hair.

“They went straight to the offices for the safe, so they obviously knew where they were going,” he added.

Andrew Lloyd-Skinner, the club's owner, said: “Everyone feels dreadfully sorry that it happened to Les, who’s a very important member of staff.

“It just shows the quality of the man. He was determined to get out of the cellar.

“It’s just unfortunate he happened to be on his own at the time.”

All the silver-plated trophies from tournaments the club has held were stolen.

“There are about 40 different trophies,” said Mr Lloyd-Skinner. “The metal’s not worth much, but there’s 20 years of history on them.”

He said security would be tightened up, including more lighting and CCTV, to guard against another burglary.

Anyone with information on the incident should call Detective Sergeant Patrick Mullan at Harlow Target Offender Team on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

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