The UK produces its fair share of eccentrics and oddballs .....
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| Known As The Silent Man - David Hampson |
.... not least the men who insist on being naked, but there are others just as odd in other ways.
David Hampson a 53 year old from Swansea, has been arrested 10 times and counting for stopping the traffic. His latest arrest at the time this post was written was in December 2023 when he was handed a 6 month sentence for Obstructing The Highway.
No one knows why he does it as he refuses to speak the either the police or the courts, but after each conviction he usually leaves prison or the court, goes to the road and promptly stops the traffic again. He's been at it for at least a decade since he was arrested in 2014, and has subsequently been arrested in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and some sentences have been a lot stiffer.
For instance he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in 2021, after a jury found he was "mute of malice" not "mute by visitation of God," and found him guilty of breaking a criminal behaviour order by blocking the road outside Swansea Central police station. However, as soon as he was released from his sentence, he returned to the road outside the police station and blocked the traffic on three occasions - and in December he was then sent back to jail.
On his silence, one Judge, Paul Thomas, has previously said in court that he believed the defendant's deliberate silence is simply the result of his "breath-taking arrogance and insolence." His brother John says that as he has no fixed abode he has become institutionalised .... “He's not really mute. He never stops talking. It is quite simple really. He's a spoiled brat. There is nothing like a protest going on. He just does it to have a comfy life inside prison.” .... so he agrees with the Judge.
However known as the ‘Silent Man’, he has never confirmed his reasons, but I assume that he speaks to people in prison, if only fellow prisoners, and surely someone knows what his motivation for this is, but no ones talking!
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