Tuesday 5 January 2010

D'Oh!

A teenager picked up a telephone call from the police - on a mobile phone her boyfriend had reported stolen three days earlier.
Whoops!
Bromley police’s Detective Sergeant Gary Gornell said: "I am disgusted at the waste of valuable time.

“The police are aware that a dishonest minority of people are intent on making false reports.”
So, what was the 'punishment'?
The 17-year-old was handed a £80 fixed penalty notice for making a false report.
Ah, right. That'll teach them...

Aren't they just the perfect examples of NuLabour's generation? Equal parts venality and ignorance, matched to no fear of the consequences, because there won't be any...

8 comments:

banned said...

Some years ago the on-off girlfriend of my then housemate made a totally groundless and malicious complaint of assault on her against me ( out of spite because he was playing away, again).
It took plod three months to track me down to my house. I explained what had happened and they were quite happy with that but advised me to 'accept' getting arrested so that the Duty Sergeant could deal with it on the spot.
That is what we did, I was released from the Police de-arrested and given a lift home.

The punishemnt for her ? Sweet FA, nadda.
For me? Not much as yet but what will the ISA make of it when they find it on my,otherwise unblemished, record?

roym said...

i thought thats how everyone gets their free upgrade?

Anonymous said...

In an unusually low stooping for an Old Etonian, Cameron bagged 140,000 votes with his promise to police that they could ‘Hug a raddy’ under his government.

Anonymous said...

Family describe father murdered in mugging as 'devoted family man'

Clueless Croydon teenager answers her 'stolen' mobile

New Year's Eve pub party man was shot in head, post mortem reveals

UPDATED: Man murdered in Thornton Heath New Year's Eve party shooting
Murdered man's brother still critical after Thornton Heath party shooting

Croydon eh? Lovely place!

Angry Exile said...

What did he report it stolen for? The article doesn't say and without knowing it's hard to say if the fine was too low, too high, about right or should never have happened.

If it was an insurance job the fine was way too low, though perhaps just enough to teach the silly sod to claim for something hard to trace or even non-existent next time. If it was really just to waste police time then who's fining the past few Home Secretaries for the target culture and accompanying form filling

And what if, which admittedly seems pretty unlikely here, it had been an honest mistake? The fine was a Fixed Penalty Notice - that's summary justice my friends. I'm not suggesting they're actually doing it yet, and certainly not to this kid in Croydon, but the thought occurs that wasting police time could so easily be the next stealth tax. Lose your car in a car park and mistakenly think it was stolen? It's okay, it's over here... but since it was clearly not stolen after all here's an £80 Fixed Penalty. Saw someone climbing over a neighbour's fence? Well, we've had a look and since there's no sign of them now we'll have to issue an £80 FPB.

The bastards could so easily turn this into a de facto fucking call out fee.

Angry Exile said...

'FPB'? WTF is an FPB? I meant FPN of course.

Joe Public said...

Let's have some sympathy here.

Not only has the poor child (no pun intended) got an £80 fine, what about the extra £15 Tax, sorry, Victim Support Surcharge, that he should be hit with?

Shall we have a whip round?

JuliaM said...

"...but what will the ISA make of it when they find it on my,otherwise unblemished, record?"

I wonder, what would you do today, knowing what you know now? Would you accept that the police were 'doing the best thing for you'?

"Croydon eh? Lovely place!"

No wonder the Croydonian moved out!

"And what if, which admittedly seems pretty unlikely here, it had been an honest mistake?"

Good point on the FPN, but it's Croydon, after all. The chance that this was an honest mistake is, I'd say, vanishingly small! :)

"...what about the extra £15 Tax, sorry, Victim Support Surcharge, that he should be hit with?"

Probably as much chance of getting that out of him as getting the FPN out of him in the first place!