First picture of much-loved ex-greengrocer Bert Allanson found stabbed to death after an alleged bungled robbery at his Wirral home

Mar 26 2012 by Luke Traynor, Liverpool Echo

THIS is the first picture of a much-loved greengrocer stabbed to death at his Wirral home in an alleged bungled robbery.

Tributes today poured in for Bert Allanson, 71, who died after apparently confronting an intruder late on Friday night in Birkenhead.

Neighbours revealed the pensioner was an amputee, who lost his leg in a fishing accident, but who remained very active.

Friend Jenny Taylor told the ECHO: “Bert would make everyone in the street flowers in pots.

“At Christmas, he would make mince pies, sausage rolls and big bags of fruit for us all. He was a wonderful man.

“He has a prosthetic leg, but it didn’t hamper him and he was always going to the 9-hole course at The Warren, in New Brighton, sometimes taking our kids.”

The ECHO has learnt Mr Allanson briefly left his Dawson Avenue at around 10pm on Friday night to collect some birthday cake from neighbours across the road.

One line of enquiry is the intruder slipped inside the unlocked home while he was briefly gone, only to be surprised by the pensioner when he quickly returned.

Adam Taylor, a next-door neighbour, was finishing a Skype telephone call to his girlfriend at 10.30pm when he heard noises. He told the ECHO: “It was the sound of scuffling, and then a loud bang.”

Hours later, at around 1.40am, police officers burst into the property, smashing down the front door after an apparent tip-off.