​A TOP hospital medic armed himself with a golf club to catch a burglar in his own home.

Kidney specialist Anurag Golash pushed burglar Thomas Lear against a wall after catching him stealing four bottles of whisky and washing powder from his garage.

The father-of-two then grabbed hold of the intruder and held did not let him go until the police arrived.

Now Drug addict Lear, of Leacroft Road, Meir, has been jailed for four years after admitting breaking into Mr Golash’s Newcastle home on March 22.

The 32-year-old   asked for 13 other burglaries to be taken into consideration, including a break-in at a house in Gravelly Bank, Lightwood, on July 17.

Mr Golash,  who was the first surgeon in the world to perform a kidney removal operation as day surgery at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, told The Sentinel that apprehending Lear had been a “moment of madness”.

The 43-year-old said: “I had popped home when I saw a man riding a bike down my drive. I went after him but he disappeared.

“Later I was having lunch with my wife when she spotted a bike outside our garage.

“I thought it might be the same man so I got a golf club because I didn’t know if he had a weapon. I was angry because he shouldn’t have been on my property.

“When I opened the internal garage door I saw him taking things out of the cupboards.

“I asked him what he was doing and He said he was looking for a plaster. He started walking away and I thought “I’m not letting him go anywhere”.

“The anger and adrenalin had built up inside me and in a moment of madness I pushed him against the wall.

“My wife came in and she was screaming and I told her to call the police.

“He struggled a bit but I held onto him. My main concern was whether he had a weapon.”

Lear later grabbed the electric remote control which operates the garage door and threw it under a sofa which accidentally closed the garage door.

Consultant urologist Mr Golash, who was honoured for his revolutionary treatment of kidney disease, at a North Staffordshire Citizen of the Year awards bash in 2006, added: “I was thinking ‘Oh no, now I’m locked in the garage with him.’ The police arrived quickly, It must have been only three to five minutes but they were the longest minutes of my life.

“When I told my colleagues and family they said I was brave but stupid.

“I am surprised he has been jailed for four years. I just just hope he doesn’t go back to burgling houses.”

Judge Paul Glenn jailed Lear for two-and-a-half years for the first burglary and four years, concurrently, for the second.

Judge Glenn told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court: “Dr Golash was left shaken up and his wife was visibly shaken.

“It is a very serious aggravating feature that a householder was confronted by you burgling their property.

“Fortunately they were people of firm character.”