Crime - Punishment And Redemption

Branded Criminal

Lee Small is man whose brain may be matching his name. He has embarked upon the life of a petty criminal with one small but fatal flaw. 

Lee Small - Branded An Idiot

He has his first name tattooed prominently on his neck. Add to the fact that he lives in the small town of Barnstaple in Devon, where most people are known to each other. So Quelle Surprise, he was jailed for three years for robbing a man at knife-point in a graveyard.

Lazy Git

Hassnain Mohammed Arif gave up college at 19, and tried his hand at that working lark. However he found working 9 am to 5 pm just too much, and that he couldn't handle the 'rigours', so he gave that up as well. 

Lazy Git - Hassnain Mohammed Arif

He told this to the judge at his drug trial. He had been stopped by the police and found to be transporting heroin and cocaine worth around £1,000. He was given a 24 months sentence to do absolutely nothing if he wanted, with 3 square meals a day ..... in prison. If ever there was a candidate to join an Islamist radical group while in prison.

No Belt and Braces

Kevin Bray robbed a bookies of £200, even though his jeans fell down during the robbery.

Kevin Bray Let Down By His Trousers

 

He was caught - Quelle Surprise - and got sentenced to two years imprisonment.

Scouse Git

Lee Furlong or 'Scousse Lee' [sic] as he likes to be known, and a Canadian girl called Brittney Schneider defaced Thai buildings including an 800 year old fortress with graffiti misspelt as above.

Brittney Schneider And Lee Furlong or 'Scousse Lee'

They each faced a fine or even 10 years in prison. As is usual with Brits caught committing crimes these days, it was claimed that he had some sort of mental illness. Unusually it was not the time worn Aspergers Syndrome ... his mum , who presumably is also a Scouser, wasn't sure what he had, but claimed that her son had "a rare brain condition," which she wasn't able to name. Whatever happened to the diagnosis of 'stupid ill educated prat'? They were each given a £2,340 fine and a one-year suspended prison sentence, and were staying at the Mad Monkey Hostel.

Taxi For ....

The fact that most petty criminals are pretty bloody stupid, is not something anyone who has read this blog would find surprising ..... its just the degree of bloody stupidity that can be surprising.

I recall a bank robber once standing in line after a cashier told him that he couldn't queue jump. Or the drug courier handing the drugs to a completed stranger, then coming back to look for them, and we have recently seen the example of the robbers coming back at closing time, after being told there would be more money in the till.

Sean Pritchard - Stupid Git

However I can't recall there being any example of a robber who called for a taxi to take him home. But yes, Sean Pritchard of Leigh on sea Essex robbed a newsagent at knife point of £300 from the till and cigarettes from the stock, then stood outside and called a taxi to take him home. He got three years 4 months, and should have got a couple more years added for being thick as a plank.

Stupid Hiker

A man wanted by the police, stopped a police officer to ask for directions, and was promptly arrested in Wokingham Berkshire England.

One Big Jail

In fact Mr Small and the rest, shouldn't feel on their own, because they have joined the largest prison population in Western Europe according to figures collated by the Council of Europe from 40 areas.

These suggest that the UK had a prison population of 94,291 inmates (as of 2016). This compared with 68,397 in France, 64,397 in Germany, 54,195 in Italy, and 60,687 in Spain. Of course proportionally these figures may represent similar percentages of the population in some cases, or even more. Spain had a population of 46.5 million in 2016 whilst the UK had around 68 million ..... but we also had a one of the highest number of life prisoners (depending upon your definition of 'life' imprisonment) at 7,361.;

In fact of all the countries that took part in the survey, only Turkey had more prison inmates than the UK with 192,627.

But Prison can work .....

Fit For Jail

Andrew McKintosh, and his brother-in-law Mark Walker, both of Soham, Cambridgeshire, England, are convicted burglars. However Mr McKintosh took a fitness trainer course while he was held in prison on remand, and he liked it.

So when they both appeared before the judge for sentencing after being found guilty, he asked the judge to send him to prison to enable him to complete the course. The judge, Gareth Hawkes-worth said that "Its an offer I can't refuse," and promptly gave him a one year prison sentence.

Ironically it also appeared that Mr McKintosh had apparently been subject to something of a medical miracle cure while on remand, because he had been claiming state disability benefits prior to his imprisonment and started the fitness trainer course ....