Homeowner Ann Fell got the shock of her life when when a burglar plunged from the sky and landed on her.

The panic-stricken thief leapt for freedom from an upstairs window after hearing her husband Derek arrive.

Wages clerk Ann, 60, was knocked to the ground as Derek, 61, raced to grapple with the intruder.

But the burglar wriggled free and fled the home in Otford Close, Crawley, with jewellery worth £1,000, leaving Ann needing hospital treatment for whiplash injuries.

Derek, who works for a company making park furniture, said: "I came home from work with the wife and went in the front door and heard a noise upstairs.

"I told the wife to go outside for obvious reasons while I went upstairs and she went out through the patio doors.

"As I got to the foot of the stairs I heard her scream and I ran back out and I couldn't believe it.

"This figure had jumped out of the upstairs window and landed on my wife, who broke his fall.

"I grabbed him round the neck, threw him against the fence and told him it was a fair cop.

"He said, 'No, no,' and was a bit frightened and I thought he had given up so I released my grip slightly.

"He hopped up like a jack in the box and fled down the garden, over the fence and down the street. I chased him down the road but he was a little bit quick."

The 6ft burglar, thought to be 19 or 20, escaped with rings, lockets, a bracelet and a pair of sombrero earrings.