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Burglars shoot man and steal girlfriend's Porsche

Jason Bennetto,Crime Correspondent
Friday 22 April 2005 00:00 BST
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A businessman was shot by burglars who broke into his home and demanded money before escaping in his girlfriend's new Porsche. As Mark Holland, 38, and his fiancée, Chloe Darker, 25 lay in bed, one of two intruders told them: "Give us your money or you're going to die."

Mr Holland, a car and property dealer in Yorkshire, was then taken downstairs and shot in the chest at close range. He is in a critical but stable condition following surgery at Sheffield's Northern General Hospital.

The burglars made off in Ms Darker's new Porsche Boxster which had been given to her by her boyfriend as a birthday present. The black sports car was later found abandoned about 10 miles away in Sheffield.

Ms Darker yesterday described the raid at about 2.30am yesterday on their detached house near Bradfield, north of Sheffield. She told a press conference: "We were in bed. We came round and there was someone stood in the room with a mask on demanding money, basically saying, 'if you don't hand it over then we'll kill you'.

"There was Mark defending his house and obviously myself. He took the guy downstairs and that's when he was shot." It is not clear whether Mr Holland struggled with either of the intruders as he was shot. "Mark came upstairs and said 'I've been shot in the chest, call an ambulance'," said Ms Darker.

Ms Darker continued: "I was looking forward to getting married in September and that was obviously becoming a distant dream at 3am this morning."

Detective Superintendent Kevin Hardy said police were treating the case as attempted murder. He said two shots had been fired from a handgun, only one of which had hit Mr Holland. The Porsche was the only thing believed to have been stolen.

Mr Hardy said that despite a spate of burglaries in South Yorkshire in which expensive cars had been targeted, none had resulted in "this level of violence".

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