Combating Noise Pollution: Yr Doin’ It Wrong

A man threatened to burn down an ambulance station because he could no longer stand the sound of sirens, a court heard.

/facepalm

I mean, is it me? Wouldn't a burning building attract, well, sirens?

Larry Wallace, 52, who lives in Rayleigh Road, Thundersley, near the Rayleigh Weir station, had repeatedly contacted the ombudsman to complain.

Finally he snapped and told Tom Lyttle at the ombudsman’s office on May 18: “I wouldn’t wish ill on anyone, but I wish cancer on the person harming me.”

Suzanne Stringer, prosecuting, said: “He also made threats to lock staff inside the ambulance station and burn it down.”

He sounds like a complete loon…

The court heard Wallace had been living at his address for eight years and had a long-running dispute with the ambulance service.

Miss Stringer said: “He says they drive past his property late at night disturbing him, putting on their emergency lights and sirens. He says he only lives half a mile from the ambulance station, he accepts the ambulance service is an emergency service, but he says when they are 50 yards away from his address they blast their horns.”

It sounds like he is trying to claim they are doing it deliberately.

Yet they are only supposed to use their sirens when needed to clear traffic or warn other drivers as they approach a junction. I’ve seen them many times running with lights only, during light traffic.

Perhaps Mr Wallace lives at such a spot?

She said Wallace told police he was trying to make a point that if the ambulance service was burnt down people would finally look back through their records and realise a man had made complaints, but nothing was done.

Maybe that’s because nothing they could have done? Ambulances need to warn other vehicles that they are coming through.

If they don’t, the consequences could be severe.

Wallace, who was representing himself…

Oh. Never has that old saying been more apt…

...said he had collected a petition of 30 disgruntled residents in the past.

You mean there were 30 other selfish, self-absorbed insomniacs who couldn’t foresee (or didn’t care) that silencing ambulances could only lead to trouble?

Presumably the same 30 that would have squealed like stuck pigs if an ambulance arrived outside of the target timeframe, too…

He added: “I’m 52 years old. I’ve worked hard all my life and all I ever want to do is have a peaceful life. I moved to Benfleet about ten years ago and when I first moved here I read in my local paper about unnecessary use of ambulance sirens and I thought what are they on about.”

But his feelings changed when he kept hearing horns and sirens in the early hours of the morning. He added: “I’ve got neighbours on sleeping pills.”

So you knew there was a possibility of siren noise and you still moved there?

Sympathy tank: empty.

District Judge Kevin Gray said: “When you have dealings with people you’re going to have to talk a bit more wisely.” He was given a six month conditional discharge.

*sigh* A mental health assessment would have been more appropriate…