Of Course, It Would Be Dorset Police....

A neighbourly feud involving a damaged garden gnome resulted in a 15-month legal ordeal for a law-abiding grandmother.

Mrs Hutton, 66, admitted she had accidentally broken off one of the gnome’s legs while moving it from a communal pathway outside her flat in Bournemouth, and said she had already apologised to its owner, Lilijana Cekauskiene.She also said she posted £20 through her neighbour’s letterbox to cover the damage. But Mrs Hutton was horrified when Mrs Cekauskiene reported the damage to Dorset Police and accused her of breaking the gnome ‘provocatively’.

And the fiull might of the Dorset cops (who make the Keystone cops look good!) descended on her:

A convoluted court saga followed, which is thought to have cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds – including £4,000 to pay for Mrs Hutton’s legal aid, £1,000 for her psychiatric evaluation, a £55-per-hour Lithuanian interpreter for Mrs Cekauskiene and magistrates’ court costs, which can be upwards of £1,000 a day.

Hey, why not, it's only taxpayer cash, there's always more where that came from, right? 

Fifteen months and three court dates later, and Mrs Hutton has been formally exonerated of any crime.

 And are those involved in this farce sorry? Reader, of course not:

Official statistics show that Bournemouth had the worst crime rate in the south-west of England in 2024. Crimes involving possessing an offensive weapon were up 22.9 per cent and shoplifting offences rose by 5.5 per cent. Meanwhile, in 2022/23, 77 per cent of burglaries went unresolved. But Wessex CPS, which brought the case against Mrs Hutton, insisted it was in the public interest.

Because the neighbour was an immigrant? After all, crimes against English-born folk don't get anything like that response....