A vigilant man who heard footsteps on his roof in the middle of the night and confronted the burglars through a window foiled a theft in St Paul’s Bay early yesterday morning.

Jonathan Tonna told Times of Malta it was 2.30am when he was awoken by the sound of footsteps, which seemed to be coming from the roof of his top-floor apartment in Parades Street.

“My daughter first heard what sounded like footsteps on the roof. I didn’t risk going out on the terrace, so I opened the bathroom window and started shouting in Maltese but my wife heard [the intruders] speaking in a foreign language,” he said.

Mr Tonna said three bare-chested men escaped via a semi-finished block of apartments next door and fled in different directions on mountain bikes.

I ran to the kitchen and got a knife

He said his adrenaline was running high and his heart was pumping fast, fuelled by his wife’s and 14-year-old daughter’s screams.

“It’s the middle of the night, you’re awoken with an emergency, I panicked. I ran to the kitchen and got hold of a knife because you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

“My neighbour heard me shouting through the shaft, went on to the balcony and saw them fleeing. One of them was wearing long trousers. They were in their 20s,” Mr Tonna said.

Three police cars, including the rapid intervention unit, arrived within minutes but the intruders had already fled. A search in the area proved fruitless.

Police were kept busy yesterday, being called to investigate a number of reports by people saying there were suspicious individuals in the vicinity, had people knocking on their doors and asking for individuals who did not live there or even saw men on roofs.

In one instance, officers investigating a report of ‘suspicious men’ found two workmen laying membrane on a roof in Msida.

It was similar to an incident a few days ago when the police were called only to find employees of a service provider working on a roof.

The police were yesterday also called to St Trophimus Street, in Sliema, where residents reported ‘suspicious’ people. However, a search proved futile.

In Attard, which Times of Malta reported yesterday had witnessed a rise in crime, residents are considering setting up a neighbourhood watch again.