We've often written about the absurd antics of those police and council officials (a minority ... we hope) who bring to the battle against crime, public order and the degradation of the environment their own peculiar mix of misplaced zeal, vicious narrow-minded insistence on every last dot and comma of the law, and sheer pig-headed stupidity. Here are some more examples taken, strangely, from the website of road-safety campaigners Brake, themselves no strangers to misplaced zeal, vicious etc. etc.
Jail for hunting golf balls
A man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for retrieving lost golf balls from course lakes. John Collinson from Chorley was jailed at Leicester Crown Court in 2002 after being found guilty of theft. He served nine days of the sentence before being released on bail pending an appeal. Later he had his jail term quashed by the Court of Appeal and was given a two-year conditional discharge.
Collinson had donned wetsuit and flippers and gone on nocturnal diving expeditions to collect balls and sell them on. His defence was that the balls were abandoned and there was no dishonest intent in retrieving them.
£3,000 fine for shop colour
A Derbyshire estate agent had to pay £3,000 in fines and legal costs because he painted his shop the wrong colour. Paul Rodgerson changed the colour of his premises on Wirksworth Marketplace to yellow but was told to repaint it by Derbyshire Dales District Council as the colour did not comply with conservation area rules. The council said the listed building should be painted in a shade from an agreed palette of colours.
Fine for throwing crisp
A woman was fined £75 for throwing a crisp out of her car window. Hilary Buckland, 46, of Orchard Way, Luton, threw a Cheesy Wotsit into the road and was spotted by an official from Luton Borough Council who thought it was a cigarette butt. She was told that it was the council's policy to issue fines for littering and it made no difference whether she had thrown a crisp or a cigarette butt.
Protester fined £200
A young woman who stripped to the waist during a protest against the building of a bypass was fined £200. Arts graduate Julie Ryder was found guilty of trespassing on land in Dalkeith Country Park in January 2006. Edinburgh Sheriff Kenneth Maciver heard how the accused had stood on a net 30ft above the ground and refused to come down. She repeatedly stripped when officers tried to remove her. It took about 30 minutes to get her down from the tree. Sheriff Maciver said it was obvious her whole demeanour was clearly disruptive.
Fine for feeding ducks
People in Leicester have been warned that they may face a fine for feeding ducks too much food. City Council officials said an increasing amount of unwanted food was being dumped in the parks, which attracted vermin and planned to introduce an £80 fine, which would be issued to persistent offenders.
Fine for dropping sweet
A father said he was fined £50 because his two-year-old son dropped a sweet he did not like on the street. Craig McKinlay, a 27-year-old taxi operator, was handed an on-the-spot fine by a patrolling warden in Pontefract. He was tying his shoelaces at the time and did not see toddler Alfie drop the heart-shaped sweet on the ground.
Discarded lollipop stick costs girl
A teenage girl was fined £75 for leaving an ice lolly stick on a wall in Manchester City Centre. Sorrell Walsh, 16, had just eaten a 95p Twister when she spotted a friend and ran over to greet her. A council warden saw that she had left the wooden stick on the wall and confronted her. The teenager burst into tears and offered to put it in the bin, but the warden still fined her. The ticket warned the GSCE student from Stalybridge that failure to pay could see her issued with a court summons and fined up to £2,000.
Naked rambler jailed
Naked rambler Stephen Gough was jailed for two months in 2006 for appearing naked in the dock in custody. Mr Gough from Hampshire had been arrested for walking naked into Edinburgh Sheriff Court to face previous charges. When appearing in court he again refused to cover himself and Sheriff Derrick McIntyre found him in contempt of court, telling him he was 'offensive'. Mr Gough and his partner Melanie Roberts, 34, had completed an 874-mile naked trek the week before. Mr Gough was arrested and jailed on several occasions during his naked walk.
Diver arrested
A swimmer was arrested and fined £80 for diving into a pool. Alan Treece, 64, and friend Kenneth Robinson, 66, were asked to leave Erith swimming pool and were stripped of their over-60s passes. Police then turned up at Mr Treece's home and arrested him on suspicion of committing a public order offence. He was released and issued with the fine.
Brake compare these incidents with punishments meted out to drivers. Reluctantly we have to say that they seem to have a point …
£180 fine for driver who killed four
A driver who killed four cyclists when he ploughed into them on a Welsh road which was covered in black ice was fined £180 for driving with three defective tyres. Robert Harris lost control of his Toyota Corolla in January 2006 and hit a group of cyclists from the Rhyl Riding Club. Four died and one suffered a broken leg.
However, a police investigation had established the defective tyres were not the cause of the crash.
Ban and fine for death crash learner driver
Learner driver Panos Savvides, 19, of Barnet, was banned from the road for six months and ordered to pay £200 in damages plus £100 court costs following a crash in which a 22-year-old woman was killed. Natasha Anastasiades was in the passenger seat of her own car which was being driven by her friend, Savvides. Savvides, who only had a provisional licence and was not driving with L-plates, lost control of the vehicle in Whetstone, crashing into a tree on Natasha's side of the vehicle, killing her on impact.
Savvides admitted to driving over the 30mph speed limit in the narrow street, which had vehicles parked on both sides. He also admitted driving without due care and attention.
12 week sentence for hit-and-run killer
Mohammed Hussain, 26, was jailed for 12 weeks following a hit-and-run crash which killed three-year-old Levi Bleasdale. The child was hit by a stolen VW Golf driven by Hussain, as she crossed the road with her mother in Burnley. Hussain admitted careless driving, having no licence or insurance, failing to stop and failing to report an accident.
In addition to the driving offences, Hussain admitted handling stolen goods when he appeared at Burnley Magistrates' Court. It emerged he was out of prison on parole after being convicted of wounding in 2001. He was sentenced to four weeks for the handling charge and 12 weeks each for the fail to stop and fail to report charges, to run concurrently. He was also banned from driving for five years.
There is some justice, though
The council official responsible for fining the vicious Cheesy Wotsit thrower in Luton has himself been jailed for two and a half years (he'll be out for Christmas, then).
John Maddox (on the left) and a subordinate "enforcement officer" in Luton's environment department, They spent the money on luxuries, holidays and a football hospitality box, Luton Crown Court was told. The fraud went on for over two years. Maddox, 37, from Wake Way, Northampton, and Joyce, 43, of
There is, however, no truth in the rumour that Joyce also pushed Stella off the roof.
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