The Queuing Gene

 Despite our general loss of good manners over the last 30 or 40 years ....

Simon Jones - The Queuing Bank Robber

.... we are still a nation of queuers as was proved by a story from the spring of 2018. 

A man was in the queue of a National Westminster Bank branch in County Durham, England. He had been waiting his turn for about 15 minutes when the bank manager, Gemma Hughes, noted that he was dressed in a hoodie, latex gloves, face-mask, and dark glasses ... and carrying a spray bottle of fabric freshener febreze.

.... Apparently fearing that he had a skin condition (which is not what I would have thought of first, with a man dressed like that in a bank, especially if I was the bank manager), she went up asked if she could help him. 

He replied "No" and carried on queuing. She was worried about offending him in case he had a skin condition under the mask, and did nothing else .... yep really!

While the bank staff manager hadn't acted, another customer feared the worst and took a photo. When it was his turn at the counter, he told the cashier Victoria Smith that he had acid in the febreze bottle, and a bomb in his bag, before forcing her to give him the £370 from her till drawer, and then fleeing. 

However the teller showed more sense than the manager and she had the presence of mind to also hand over a decoy £1,000 bundle, which contained a National Westminster bank -approved tracking device. 

However, quelle surprise, this incompetent bank branches tracking device failed to work .... despite this, as a customer had called the police, the vehicle used by Jones was identified that same day, along with the clothing worn by Jones and the Febreze bottle. Bank robber Simon Jones was later caught. Manager Gemma Hughes made a statement after the robbery, saying: "My staff were terrified. I feel nervous for the staff and nervous opening up the branch tomorrow."

In court Simon Jones admitted robbery and taking his girlfriend's car without consent, which he had used to go to the bank, and make a get-away. He was  jailed for 40 months.

The judge said that he did not want to criticise anyone in the bank for their actions that day, but he added: 

"Whilst it might be understandable not to want to offend someone with a skin condition, such were the circumstances here, it is perhaps only due to time constraints on staff in the bank, that a lot more was not done to spare Victoria Smith from the situation that arose. She was left to face him one to one over the counter and was left in fear as to what might happen."

Bank teller Victoria Smith had spent some months off work, and was only back in the process of returning to duty at the time of the trial. In a court impact statement she said she had repeatedly relived the moment she faced Jones in nightmares which kept her awake.

"I felt like I was in a parallel universe where this was not happening to me. There were children in the bank in pushchairs, other staff and numerous customers. We all could have been hurt by the actions of this person."

 ... its not known if the bank manager kept her job, but it sounds like the human resource training that told her that not offending someone, was more important than stopping a bank robbery, or her duty of care to the staff and other customers, needs to be amended.