A tiny disabled pensioner, who was given £330k in donations by good Samaritans after a vicious mugging appalled the nation, has spent the bulk of his cash by moving house six times in 10 years.
The assault on 4ft 6ins, six stone, Alan Barnes, 77, by drug dealer Richard Gatiss left the public so appalled that an appeal to raise funds rocketed.
Mr Barnes told MailOnline he was no longer in touch with ‘Angel of the North’ Katie Cutler, the then 21-year-old beautician who started the appeal – but that he forgives Gatiss for the attack.
In the 10 years since the mugging which left him with a broken collar bone, Mr Barnes spent the money raised on new homes to take him away from the Sheriff Hill area of Gateshead, Tyneside, where the attack happened.
However, he has now returned to the nearby suburb of Low Fell where he lives happily in a small terraced property on his own.
Mr Barnes refused to allow the mugging to rob him of his independence and he still goes out to do his own shopping despite being registered blind.
He also attends church and has even penned a song, The Rhyme, which he would like to release ‘to make some money of my own.’
When asked whether he’s been able to forgive Richard Gatiss, Mr Barnes told MailOnline: ‘I think I have, yes. What he did was terrible and if it had been a worse injury he caused me that might have been different.
Alan, pictured this month, in his modest home which is sparsely furnished to give him fewer obstacles to negotiate as he moves around
Mr Barnes pictured with Katie Cutler, the beautician who spearheaded a campaign to help him that raised £330,000 – but they no longer speak
‘I actually heard afterwards that what Gatiss did to me might have been a case of mistaken identity, that someone else might have been the target but I don’t know.
‘Terrible things happen in the world, just look at those three little girls who were murdered in Southport in the summer, so you have to put things into context.
‘I was able to carry on with my life and I’m happy, I haven’t let what happened to me 10 years ago stop me from doing anything.
‘I like to go out and walk to the Co-op and stop to chat to people along the way and I still go to church, which is important to me.
‘If you are a Christian then you have to be happy in life, that’s the way that I see it. If you fully understand the holy spirit then you can never be depressed.’
The money raised allowed Mr Barnes to buy his own home for the first time in his life and in the next six years he had five addresses before settling at his present one.
He initially purchased a smart two-bed terrace for £150,000.
However, he was unable to settle into his new house, and moved several times since, including into a spacious newbuild overlooking the Victorian Saltwell Park in Gateshead, which he bought for £250,000 in 2017.
He sold that house for £205,000 in July 2020, making a loss of £45,000, and is now living in a smaller home close by, having never left the Low Fell suburb.
Mr Barnes still has some of his £330,000 fortune left, but insisted that he does not ‘need much to be happy’
‘I’m happy here, it’s the best place that I’ve had and I find the people who live around here are really warm and friendly.’
Alan Barnes has spent much of his fortune on houses, having moved six times since the 2015 attack
Now, his modest home is sparsely furnished to give him fewer obstacles to negotiate as he moves around.
He says: ‘I’ve had some really nice places, one of them was very large and overlooked a park but I found the road outside a little too busy.
‘I’m happy here, it’s the best place that I’ve had and I find the people who live around here are really warm and friendly.
‘I still get recognised and people stop to say hello but I’m happy to say that for the most part the requests for selfies have stopped.
‘I couldn’t go anywhere after all the publicity without someone stopping and asking for a selfie. I didn’t like it when it was a group of lads because they’d always want to put their arms around me – I didn’t mind when it was the girls though.
‘It’s nice when people say hello. I was at the MetroCentre just before Christmas and a man stopped and called: “Look it’s Alan.” I thought that was nice.’
Despite vowing that he and Katie would be ‘friends for life,’ Mr Barnes says they are no longer in touch.
Mr Barnes says that his current home (pictured) in Gateshead is the ‘best place’ that he has lived
Pictured is the original rented property which Alan Barnes lived in before he was attacked
Mr Barnes outside the first home he bought with the donations – an Edwardian terraced home in Low Fell, Gateshead in 2015
The second home that Mr Barnes bought was a semi-detached, two bedroom property, which cost £115,000
He said: ‘I don’t hear from Katie now but I hope she’s OK. She started the appeal that raised all that money for me and I will always be grateful for the generosity that people showed.
‘I still have some money left but I don’t need much. I have my home and I’m not a materialistic person, I don’t need a lot to be happy.
‘I have written a song called The Rhyme and I’d like to release it to make some money for myself.
‘I sang it at the local Methodist church hall and it went down really well, especially with the kids. Every verse has a story that’s about something in my life.”
Mr Barnes, who has complex disabilities as a result of his mother contracting German measles while pregnant with him, had been moving his bins on an evening in January 2015 when Gatiss pushed him to the ground and began rifling through his pockets for cash.
He eventually left empty-handed after Mr Barnes cried out for help from his neighbours.
Gatiss was arrested due to DNA found on his victim’s jacket and was sentenced to four years in prison for assault with intent to rob.
Sentencing him, Judge Paul Sloan, KC, said: ‘Mr Barnes was vulnerable, there is no doubt he was picked on by you because of his vulnerability, it was in any view a despicable offence.”‘
After the attack, Katie Cutler’s fundraising campaign gained support from all over Britain and the world.
The disabled pensioner purchased this £244,950 two-storey property in November 2018 but said that he would rather live in a bungalow at the time
The OAP told MailOnline that he is now ‘happy’, and has not let the 2015 attack stop him from enjoying life
For her part in helping him, Katie Cutler, from Greenside, Gateshead, was branded the ‘Angel of the North’ by the public and was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s 2015 Birthday Honours.
However things soured for her in the aftermath.
She was left with a bill of almost £7,000 by a PR firm which she asked to help with fundraising and to set up a charity to continue helping people.
The charity did not make it off the ground and Ms Cutler was threatened with court action. In 2016, she lost to PR consultant Claire Barber and was ordered to repay her £6,200.
Ms Cutler at the time vowed never to do any charity work again.
When approached by MailOnline this week she declined to comment.
