Pub landlord stabbed as he fought off muggers one-handed in order to save his fish and chips

A heroic pub landlord trained in martial arts has said he fought off four attackers without dropping his fish and chips. John Wood, 37, said he was stabbed with a screwdriver while walking back to his car from Frank's fish and chip shop in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. Mr Wood, who runs a the Marshland Arms in Marshland St James in Norfolk, said he "disabled" two men by kicking them in the knees. He said by coincidence his fiancee texted him while the robbery was happening, urging him to be careful.



Mr Wood, who learned the Japanese art of Aikido as a teenager, said he was approached by four young men on Thursday as he walked down an alleyway close to Lynn Road at about 9pm. "They said 'we want your wallet' and then my phone rang and they said 'we'll have your phone as well'," he said. "The irony was it was my fiancee who messaged me saying, 'be careful - it's dangerous out there'. I said, 'If you want it, you'll have to come and get it'."He said he managed to kick the first two men in the knees and, using one hand, fought off the third.

A fourth man then stabbed him in his chest but he said he wrestled the screwdriver off him before throwing it away. Mr Wood added: “I turned around again and the other one came at me with what I thought was a knife. He just lunged and I felt a sharp twang in my side. I grabbed his hands so he couldn’t bring it out and stab again. I pulled it out myself, disarmed him and then hit him. I think he was knocked out. Then I just got in my car and left. I didn’t even drop the chips. It was all done one-handed. They weren’t even squashed when I got home.”



"I do feel lucky - if they had stabbed me one inch over it would have hit my liver and my lung and someone would have found me bleeding in an alleyway instead," he said. His fiancee Claire Upton said: "I texted him because it was dark and you do worry about these things, but you don't expect them to happen to someone you know. It wasn't bleeding profusely and he refused to go to hospital but he eventually drove himself there because he said it felt odd. It was really scary." Cambridgeshire Police said they were contacted by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn to say Mr Wood had been stabbed and have appealed for witnesses.