Award-winning Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator Pauline Palmer took her role seriously. When she wasn’t on the lookout for criminal goings-on in her neighbourhood, the 71-year-old was keeping an eagle eye on what neighbour Brian Collins, 51, was up to. She watched him from the day he moved in, a court was told.
For three years, Mrs.Palmer kept a detailed diary on his activities – including sessions in his garden hot tub with women, and when he had sex in his bedroom. In one of her notes, she wrote: ‘I saw Mr.Collins in his hot tub with two women. He said “get your t**s out, b****”.’ In her diary, she also recorded when women stayed overnight with Mr.Collins. And she noted the comings and goings of male visitors, some of whom ‘wore baseball caps’. Mrs.Palmer took down vehicle registration numbers, noted conversations and admitted putting her ear to the adjoining wall of their Victorian terraced homes – hers at No 12 St Julian Grove, Colchester, his at No 14.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that she amassed sufficient information to persuade Colchester Council to serve a noise abatement order on Mr.Collins, even though his neighbour on the other side said she had never heard any noise. Mr.Collins, who is on incapacity benefit, was fined £100 for breaching the noise abatement order, and faces a further bill of £365 in legal costs after failing in an appeal.
Mr.Collins said Mrs.Palmer was ‘obsessive’, and claimed she was invading his privacy and stalking him. He said ‘She’s nosy, interfering, been on her own for at least 30 years. Her attitude is obsessive, it’s almost damned near frightening. I have never had anyone perv over me before, write down that they’ve heard me having sex in my bedroom or watch me in a hot tub with a couple of women.’ Mr.Collins, who said he had never spoken to Mrs.Palmer, added ‘She’s a complete pain. This is obsessive behaviour. She’s complained to everybody, it’s what she does.’
When questioned about her ‘extraordinarily detailed diaries’ from December 2006 to September 2009, Mrs.Palmer said ‘It was my role as Neighbourhood Watch.’ In January she was awarded Neighbourhood Watch Co-ordinator of the Year by Essex Police.
Environmental control officer Guy Milham visited Mrs.Palmer’s home in September 2009 and said the music from next door was a statutory nuisance. ‘I could hear Mr.Collins in his hot tub,’ he said. ‘The music changed to panpipes to which Mr.Collins was occasionally shouting “Oh yes, oh yes”.’ But Mr.Collins’s other neighbour, Nicola Bailey, told the court she never heard him play loud music.
Last night Mrs.Palmer, a divorced mother of two, told the Mail ‘He made my life a misery. Sometimes the noise got so bad I had to go and stay with a relative for a few days. It’s been one of my most unusual cases but it does show how important it is to keep a record of what’s happened.’
Our society today invests tremendous publicity, legal and judicial effort, public outrage and expense to the task of stopping people having sex with anyone they shouldn't.
You'd think f*cking had only just been invented, rather than being the natural and normal (well actually, the only) method of human reproduction since first we heaved ourselves from the primordial slime (about thirty years ago if you come from Basildon). All through pre-history they did it. Stone Age man did it, probably from behind. Bronze Age man did it with more style. The Romans did it rather a lot, by all accounts. The Ancient Greeks did it with men, women, boys, girls, goats etc. and then painted it on pots. The Ancient Egyptians did it with their sisters. The Virgin Mary did it ... oh no, sorry, that's wrong.
They did it in the Dark Ages, mostly in the dark. They did it in the Middle Ages. They did it during the commonwealth, but kept it a secret from Oliver Cromwell who didn't approve. They did it in the 18th Century, especially at court. They did it in Victorian times, often with prostitutes. Even Victoria herself did it, with Albert who had special hardware installed for the purpose. They did it in the street when celebrating the end of World War 1. Flappers did it in short skirts in the 1920s, they did it to jazz in the 1930s, they did it with practically anyone during World War 2, they did it in public in the 1960s. They didn't do it at all in the 1950s, though. Or perhaps I was too young to notice.
But now we've reached a new millennium, everything's changed, apparently. It's no longer a good thing. There are rules.
Footballers shouldn't have sex with each other's wives. Male teachers shouldn't have sex with their female pupils. Can't argue with that, of course, but have you any idea how randy a seventeen-year-old girl can be? Not that I speak from personal experience, unfortunately.
Female teachers shouldn't have sex with their male pupils, either. At least thirty young women have been tried in the US in the last year for doing so. One of them was actually forced to have sex by two large and intimidating black 16-year-old boys, but what the hell, the court found her guilty anyway. Many people might have thought that this was a marvellous and life-enhancing experience for the boys – great sex with an older and presumably more experienced girl, and no problems dumping her when you fancy a change. Doesn't seem to happen so often in this country, probably because boys find it easier to get what they want from their female classmates who, if the teenage pregnancy figures are anything to go by, are only too willing to give it away. Anyway, whenever it occurs it's definitely not child abuse. It's a heaven-sent opportunity.
You can't do it if you're a Muslim woman, not unless you're married. Even then you're not allowed to enjoy it because some dirty old man cut your bits off with a rusty razor-blade. And if some men drag you into an alley late at night and make you do it against your will, that's your fault. You shouldn't have put temptation in their way, so you'll have stones thrown at you and your hair set on fire.
MPs shouldn't have sex with their secretaries, researchers or assistants – in fact, anyone younger and more fanciable than themselves, and let's be honest, almost anyone is more fanciable than the average MP. It's claimed that this is to protect them from the possibility of being blackmailed. If you believe that, you'll believe anything. It has nothing to do with blackmail, it's all about prurient curiosity and envy.
Male and female army or navy officers mustn't have sex with each other. Actors, actresses, singers, comedians, newsreaders etc. shouldn't have sex with anyone at all. Not before the watershed, anyway.
It goes without saying, of course, that paedophiles shouldn't have sex with children. Trouble is, a child is anyone up to the age of 16, so a 17-year-old boy who has sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend is liable to be charged with rape and put on the sex offenders' register, unless some policeman manages to summon up a rare flash of common sense. But just look at the trouble Ken Clarke got into when he pointed this out. “Rape is rape!”, they cried. Which it obviously isn't.
So, what's the answer?
We suggest a simple solution. Just make it illegal to put any part of your own body into any part of someone else's body.
There! Problem solved. No more scandals, no more court injunctions, no more foot after foot of column inches devoted to something that isn't anyone's business. No more 16-year-old boys irreparably damaged by a few minutes of sweaty joy in the RE stockroom after school (stick to masturbation, lads, that's still legal – at least until Pauline Palmer moves in next door). No more squaddies tempted to disobey orders because they're still feeling sated from a good romp on the camp bed the night before.
Of course, there's the problem of procreation, but that's easily solved. Just sanctify the institution of marriage by giving an exemption to married couples, provided that they apply for a f*cking licence, pay a f*cking fee and subject themselves to f*cking supervision by a trained f*cking employee from the local f*cking authority.
Don't forget, you f*cking read it here f*cking first.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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