Once a fireman, always a fireman. Joanne Fenton half jokes about her husband’s ability to stay calm in a crisis. You can retire from the job, it seems, but only to a point.
‘I’d have been running around like a headless chicken, not knowing what to do, but Ade went the opposite way,’ she says.
Adrian Fenton, 58, nods, and embarks on the sort of forensic analysis a professional first-responder would give, explaining what he did, and the thinking behind it.
What he’s unpicking is the shocking moment they discovered a stowaway hiding in their campervan, on a return trip from France last October.
Adrian’s not on trial here, but he feels he is. And he absolutely, resolutely, believes he did the right thing – the thing any public servant, retired or not, would do.
‘I was very methodical. The first thing I did, when I saw those trainers, and then the legs attached to them, was to shout to Jo to call the police,’ he explains.
‘There were two things going on – thinking of the guy’s welfare,…
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