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Strange Crimes

Jailed: Disabled armed robber who held up two shops before getting caught trying to escape on his zimmer frame
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:02 PM on 17th June 2008

A disabled armed robber who held up two shops was caught as he made his escape on a zimmer frame, a court heard.

Kevin Staples, 59, was detained by a security guard as he slowly shuffled away from one of the stores he held up.

He had hobbled up to the counter at the gift shop Past Times, produced a 12-inch bread knife and demanded the cashier empty the till.

Staples, who suffers from severe arthritis, back problems and needs a hip replacement, then tried to lunge towards the till.

But when the shop assistant shouted at him he carefully put the weapon in a bag hanging on his zimmer frame before hobbling out.

The slow-moving robber was caught by bemused security guards before he could limp out of the shopping centre in Crawley, West Sussex.

Two days previously, he had help up a Bottoms Up off-licence in Bournemouth, Dorset, by waving a walking stick in the air.

He told staff: "Give me all the money from the safe or I'm going to batter you."

When an assistant said he did not have access to the safe or till, Staples mumbled 'give me some fags then' before hobbling out of the shop with the stick.

The court heard Staples struck at Past Times in the County Mall shopping centre in Crawley on December 4 last year.

Neil Carter, manager of the centre, said: "He went into the store on a zimmer frame and threatened them with a knife. When they told him to leave he walked out on his frame.

"We have a shop alert system in the event of an emergency and the staff pressed the button and security officers responded.

"He hadn't got very far when they arrived and detained him. It was a very bizarre and strange incident.

"You wouldn't expect to be robbed by someone on a zimmer frame."

As he was being detained he hit out at one of the guards.

Staples pleaded guilty to robbery, attempted robbery and assault by beating. He claimed that voices in his head had told him to steal money for the stores.

Bournemouth Crown Court was told Staples has a previous conviction for robbery in which an imitation firearm was used in 1996.

He was jailed indefinitely by judge Christopher Harvey Clark who told him: "In my view you are a dangerous man."

He told Staples he could not be considered for parole for at least four years.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... frame.html
 
I suppose this is morally a crime, even if not technically one...

Fruit pickers' free for all ends

A fruit farm has stopped doing "pick your own" strawberries because customers are eating too much of the fruit without paying.

Hacker's Fruit Farm, near Cambridge, had offered pickers the chance to select their own strawberries for the last 40 years.

Mark Spight, who runs the farm, said he was annoyed at the number of people not paying for the strawberries.

One family were caught dipping the berries in cream as they picked them.

Mr Spight said he used to get angry watching people gorging themselves then only taking a handful of fruit to be paid for.

He said some people were eating up to £15 worth of strawberries and would come to the checkout covered in juice.

There had also been an increasing problem with unruly behaviour leading to plants being trampled and fruit damaged.

"We don't mind people going picking and trying some strawberries, but we once had a family come with a bowl of cream. It was shocking," said Mr Spight.

"We used to have a lot of children playing in the fields and trampling the plants. We thought it was not worth it."

The farm still has a farm shop and "pick your own" blackberries and other berries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/camb ... 461724.stm

(Perhaps the title might have been clearer if it said 'free-for-all'... )
 
This does not surprise me in the least. Our archery club shoots along side a strawberry field and it is common to find empty cream pots thrown over the fence.

The children indulge in "strawberry fights" pelting each other with fruit and we are faced daily cleaning off of fruit stains from the targets. The children are brought along as a day out. They are soon bored and start being destructive.
We cannot shoot until the pickers have left and they sometimes return to help themselves to more fruit once the farm staff have gone.

The pickers think nothing of reversing over the plants when they leave the carpark and are abusive if challenged in any way.

The loss due to theft and vandalism must be considerable.
 
Newlywed charged with murdering wife while diving at Great Barrier Reef during honeymoon
Last Updated: 3:15AM BST 20/06/2008

An American tourist has been charged with with murdering his newlywed wife while diving at the Great Barrier Reef during their honeymoon.

Christina Mae Watson, 26, from Alabama, drowned while diving near in October 2003 with her husband of 11 days, Daniel Gabriel Watson.

Her final moments were captured in a photograph taken by another member of the diving expedition, with her body seen sinking to the ocean floor in the background of the picture.

Mrs Watson was a novice but her husband was an experienced diving enthusiast, an Australian coronial inquiry was told.

During final submissions yesterday at a court in Townsville, far north Queensland, police claimed there was enough evidence to charge Mr Watson with murder.

Officers told the court that they would allege Mr Watson turned off his wife's air supply until she was dead, or nearly dead, then turned it back on and allowed her to sink to the ocean floor.

Steve Zillman, representing Mr Watson, said there was no motive for murder and said his client should be presumed innocent.

But in his findings, David Glasgow, the coroner, said there was sufficient evidence for a properly instructed jury to convict Mr Watson of murder.

He issued a warrant for Mr Watson's arrest and formally charged him with murder. Mr Watson, who did not appear at the inquest, will have to be extradited from America to face the charges.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ymoon.html
 
I remember this. Wasn't the death presumed an accident until a woman who was also diving, but didn't know the couple, looked harder at her holiday snaps and noticed a figure in the background, apparently alone, sinking, whereas the husband had said he hadn't left her side? Or something.
 
Journalist 'reported own murders'

Police in Macedonia have arrested a journalist on suspicion that he is behind three murders he reported on.

The journalist, Vlado Taneski, is accused of raping, torturing and killing three elderly women in the south-western town of Kicevo.

Macedonian police began to suspect him after he included details in his reports that they had not made public.

Other men have reportedly already been convicted of the first two murders. The third was committed last month.

Mr Taneski, 56, has not yet been charged with any offence, police said.

They allege that he kidnapped and abused the women before cutting them into pieces and dumping them in plastic bags.

"He is also suspected of being involved in... [the disappearance of] a 78-old female who is still missing," said police spokesman Ivo Kotevski.

"All victims were found naked, strangled, wrapped with phone cables," the spokesman said.

"The women were sexually and physically abused. For example, the last victim, a 65-year old female, was found with 13 deep wounds on her skull and multiple rib fractures."

All cleaners

All the women apparently had similarities to the suspect's late mother, with whom he reportedly had a poor relationship.

"All victims were elderly females with poor education who had worked as cleaners. They all were from the same neighbourhood of Kicevo," Mr Kotevski said.

Mr Taneski's editor at the Utrinski Vesnik newspaper told the Associated Press: "We are all shocked with this. I know him as an exceptionally quiet man and I would never believe that he is capable of doing something like that."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7467597.stm

Sounds like making work for yourself....
 
Pride comes before a fall...

Snap of fisherman's catch lands him in court

An angler was caught fishing illegally - after he was pictured showing off his catch. Robert Townsend was delighted when he hooked a 6lb 2oz perch and recorded the moment for posterity. But he landed in court after the image appeared in a fishing magazine.

Angling authorities saw the picture and realised that Townsend, 41, a car dealer, of Woodmansterne, Surrey, did not have a valid rod licence. He was fined £200 with £75 costs, after pleading guilty at North Surrey Magistrates' Court. The cost of a full licence is £25 a year.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 228457.ece
 
:lol: Silly sod. Those Water Bailiffs're red hot. I work at the courts and see regular purges on fishing licences. You're more likely to get away with murder than with fishing with no licence. ;)
 
Oh. My. Goodness.

Man Gives Drug-Laced Cookies to Cops

Last Update: 7:23 am

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - A man accused of delivering baskets of drug-laced cookies to as many as a dozen police departments, causing several officers to become sick, was arrested Tuesday.

Christian V. Phillips, 18, of Watauga, was arrested Tuesday morning after allegedly taking cookies to the Lake Worth police station, where officers had been tipped off that someone was falsely claiming to deliver treats on behalf of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said Lake Worth Police Chief Brett McGuire.

"Our officers took a good whiff and thought they smelled like marijuana," McGuire said, adding that preliminary tests instead detected traces of LSD.

Phillips was taken into custody and later charged with possession of LSD, although the charge may be changed, McGuire said.

Phillips denied trying to contaminate the goodies or harm anyone and said one of his friends may have been smoking pot while he was baking, McGuire said. The suspect is not affiliated with MADD, the chief said.

Phillips remained jailed in Lake Worth pending an arraignment Wednesday. Bail had not been set, and he did not yet have an attorney, McGuire said.

In nearby Fort Worth, at least three officers got sick after eating some cookies and candy after a basket was delivered to that police station Monday night, authorities said.

Fort Worth police are conducting tests and plan to file charges if LSD or another drug or chemical is found in the food, said Lt. Paul Henderson.

Lake Worth investigators found that Phillips had a list of about two dozen North Texas departments, with 13 checked off, but it's unclear if anyone else got sick because some deliveries were made in the past week, McGuire said.

He said Blue Mound police found traces of marijuana in the treats. Blue Mound police tipped off Lake Worth after receiving a call from MADD that no one was delivering cookies on its behalf.


©2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Click to expand...

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=5b65b472-3910-47dc-9e93-434258604c29

So many questions. Does LSD smell like marijuana when you bake it into cookies? (That's biscuits, for those of you who don't speak American.) What kind of cookies? What about the candy? In what way did the cops get "sick?" Is Phillips the criminal mastermind or just the delivery patsy? Does this demonstrate a grudge against the cops, MADD, or both? Are the drugs as homemade as the cookies? What about the thirteen "checked off" departments?

These are deep waters.
 
The cops gave themselves a placebo effect when they smelled the cookies. They expected to smell pot and their brains took some other smell and interpreted it as pot. I'm pretty sure lsd doesn't have a smell.
 
Journalistic excellence at work. The video claims Phillips was delivering cookies for MADD as part of community service after last-year's conviction for losing his temper; the print source claims MADD wasn't sending cookies to cops. Who to believe? What to believe? I hope being arrested for doing his community service work doesn't sour this kid for life.
 
Sadly not an uncommon crime, but an unusual way to get shopped for it:

Child pleads 'stop mummy driving'

A woman was caught drink-driving after a distressed child was seen shouting "stop mummy driving" and banging on the windows of a car.

Central Scotland Police said the car carrying the five-year-old girl was stopped in Falkirk on Sunday afternoon.

When breathalysed, the 35-year-old woman was found to be four times over the legal drink drive limit.

The woman was one of 12 drivers caught in the second week of a police drink-driving crackdown.

It is understood a member of the public intervened after spotting the distressed girl, opened the rear door of the car and removed her from the vehicle.

The car was then stopped by police at Castings Avenue in the town centre.

'Inexcusable behaviour'

Ch Insp Donald McMillan, of the area's road policing unit, said: "This motorist was prevented from causing serious injury to herself, her child and other road users.

"The child was in an extremely distressed state and we are thankful the incident didn't result in serious injuries.

"However, this should serve as a reminder to motorists that as soon as they get behind a wheel they have a responsibility to themselves, their passengers and other road users."

The woman pleaded guilty to three charges at Falkirk Sheriff Court on Monday.

They included having a breath alcohol level of 158 microgrammes, nearly four-and-a-half times the legal limit of 35, and putting the child at risk.

She will be sentenced next month.

Assistant Chief Constable Jim Green of Strathclyde Police, who is secretary of the Association of Chief Police Officers road policing business area, said:

"Never in my 29 years of policing, have I ever heard of such an incident where such a young child has alerted members of the public to a parent's totally unacceptable and inexcusable behaviour.

"While the court will address the driving consequences of this woman's behaviour, it is the underlying issues that have to be addressed by all our partners who are concerned with this driver and many other motorists' well-being as well as that of the general and motoring public."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tay ... 530903.stm
 
Man decapitated on Canadian bus

A man on a Greyhound bus travelling across the Canadian Prairies has killed and decapitated a fellow passenger.

An eyewitness said the victim was stabbed 50 or 60 times by the man sitting next to him, who then severed his head with a large knife.

The bus made an emergency stop to allow passengers to escape and the driver barred the door from the outside while waiting for the police to arrive.

The bus was travelling from Edmonton, Alberta, to Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Greyhound Canada said there were 37 passengers and a driver aboard the bus.

"All of a sudden, we all heard this scream, this bloodcurdling scream," passenger Garnet Caton told CBC television.

"The attacker was standing up right over the top of the guy with a large hunting knife - a survival, Rambo knife - holding the guy and continually stabbing him... in the chest area," Mr Caton added.

'Like a robot'

The attack continued as passengers fled the bus and waited for police on a desolate stretch of the TransCanada Highway near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.

"He calmly walks up to the front [of the bus] with the head in his hand and the knife and just calmly stares at us and drops the head right in front of us," Mr Caton said.

"There was no rage in him ... It was just like he was a robot or something," he added.

A man was taken into custody by police at around 0100 (0700 GMT) on Wednesday night, according to reports.

Mr Caton said he and a truck driver helped the bus driver bar the bus door to prevent the attacker from leaving.

When the attacker tried to drive the bus away, the driver disabled the vehicle.

"Some people were puking, some people were crying, other people were in shock ... everybody was running, screaming off the bus," Mr Caton said.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said only that a "major incident" took place on the bus as it drove along the Trans-Canada Highway en route to Winnipeg from Edmonton.

Other passengers said that the attacker and his victim were sitting at the back of the bus and the victim, described as around 20 years old, was listening to music through headphones.

The attack appeared to be unprovoked and it is thought the killer did not know his victim.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7535840.stm
 
There was another reported head-lopping incident this weekend, this time on a Greek island:
BBC News said:
Gruesome crime shocks Greek isle
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Athens

Police on the Greek island of Santorini have shot and injured a knifeman who decapitated his girlfriend and walked around the streets with her head.

Terrified residents of the popular tourist island barricaded themselves into their homes and called the police.

The suspect, 35, was shot during a dramatic car chase in which he crashed into a motorbike and badly injured the rider and pillion passenger.

The crime is one of the most gruesome in Greece in recent memory.

Ricochet

The man reportedly beheaded his girlfriend, a teacher in her mid-to-late 20s, in the village of Vourvoulos, close to the island's capital, Thira, and then paraded with the head.

Speaking on Greek television, the local sub-prefect said the man attacked officers who tried to arrest him and slashed one policeman in the face.

The man threw the head into a patrol car and then stole a police jeep and tried to get away.

But after 400m the suspect slammed into a motorbike carrying two female doctors.

They were thrown into the air and badly hurt.

The police then opened fire and hit the alleged knifeman five times.

According to one eyewitness, one police bullet ricocheted off the road and hit a woman in the leg and jaw.

The suspect is said to have a history of jealousy and domestic violence.

The authorities say they are organising a military aircraft to fly the man and some of those he injured to undergo emergency surgery in Athens.
Click to expand...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7539944.stm
 
Greek Police are keeping watch over the decapitated body just in case the giant Chrysador and Pegasus leap out . . . :shock:
 
Been having nightmares over that bus decapitation! Yeesh! :shock:

I recall, years ago, watching writer Truman Capote on the "Johnny Carson" show. Capote was howling with laughter while he told about a recent robbery at one of his homes.

Several morons broke into the house and stole a bunch of stuff, some of it pretty valuable-mostly electronics I think.

They might have gotten away with it, but as I said, their IQ's clearly were, to put it gently, limited.

After stealing one of Capote's cameras, they then celebrated their success by posing with various stolen articles to have their pictures taken by their fellow criminals.

They were soon caught and charged with several crimes (breaking and entering, trespass, theft, etc) after forgetting to take the camera away with the rest of their loot.

Don't you just love stupid criminals?! :lol:
 
Lots of strange folk here:

Audacious raids targeted wealthy
By Kirsty Gardner
West of England producer, BBC News

The Johnsons thought they were untouchable and treated their home county of Gloucestershire like a private playground.

The family starred in their very own BBC documentary and while the generous would call them "colourful", the victims of the attacks, fraud, theft and damage left trailing in their wake would feel quite differently about them.

It is their audacious smash and grab raids on the homes of the wealthy which have put members of this family in the record books for having pulled off Britain's biggest burglary.

The trial, which has resulted in five of them being sentenced to between eight and 11 years, is the result of Operation Haul, the work of five police forces.

At an earlier trial, which can only be reported now, 12 members of the family and their associates were punished for conspiracy to burgle or steal precious metals worth £360,000.

So who are the people the police have dubbed the Johnsons' organised crime network?

Five jailed for biggest burglary

The Johnson clan was born out of the union in the 1950s of Muriel "Millie" Slender of Cheltenham and Albert Johnson.

Eight children followed - five boys and three girls. Albert died in the 1970s and Alan, known as Jimmy, and Ricky, who had spent years as children in care, took over as heads of the family.

Jimmy, though not part of the latest series of trials, has a number of convictions. In 2000, he spent 18 hours up a tree after running away from police.

They had been chasing him after he skipped bail between being convicted of stealing caravans worth £25,000 and sentencing.

In 2006, he was jailed by Oxford Crown Court for four-and-a-half years for stealing a JCB and attempting to wrench the ATM from the front of Lloyds Bank in Burford, Oxfordshire.

Ricky Johnson was jailed for three years in 1997 for defrauding elderly people through a bogus building company, Christian Construction.

The company charged high fees for poor work and netted £160,000 before the police caught up with them.

When convicted, he blamed Jesus and said: "I hope these people can find it in their hearts to understand that Christ works in mysterious ways and I follow his guiding voice."

In the BBC3 documentary Country Strife - Summer with the Johnsons, Ricky Johnson boasted of his life of crime and admitted to doing "an awful lot of robbing".

He went on to deny his part in the burglary of more than 100 priceless snuff boxes from the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, but added: "If I feel the need when I have got to rob a country manor stately home I will do so.

"I will rob it and hope that I don't get caught... I really feel I've got the right to rob the lords out there. I feel I've got the right to rob the sirs and lords and ladies."

He was later charged in connection with the Waddesdon burglary though the court case collapsed.

'Secret service duty'

Another person in the BBC3 documentary was Ricky's son, Chad, and he told the show: "I've got no GCSEs. I just know street life and gypsy life - that is all I know."

At 32 he has begun an 11-year stretch for his part in the country house burglaries.

He is serving a jail term for marrying a vulnerable woman 38 years his senior and transferring thousands of pounds of her money to himself and leaving her with debts of £60,000.

Despite marrying Tania Campbell, now 71, Chad Johnson continued to live with his girlfriend Karly and their four children in a caravan.

He told his elderly wife, a diagnosed schizophrenic, he was on active duty with the secret service or working in the US.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud and was sentenced last year to three-and-a-half years imprisonment.

The judge in his case condemned him in the strongest possible terms: "This was a disgraceful plan whereby Tania Campbell was enticed into a sham marriage, stripped of her assets and became bankrupt.

"I don't think it makes it any better that she was a willing participant. She was a vulnerable, lonely lady."

Even now, Mrs Johnson declared her love for her young husband to the BBC: "I love him, simple as that, because he is good to me.

"The Johnsons are misunderstood, they are lovely and kind people. I think the fact they get so much punishment is absolutely ludicrous. The court case about me was a load of lies. There was no need for him to be imprisoned or punished at all. Absolute rubbish."

Earlier this year she helped curate an exhibition of brightly-coloured acrylic paintings by her husband at the St Paul's Place Light Gallery of Shadowed Art in Cheltenham.

The couple are still legally married.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7304501.stm

More info here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7544650.stm
 
Divers guilty of NHS bends fraud

Two divers have been found guilty of swindling £250,000 from the NHS for treating bogus cases of the bends.

David Welsh, 49, from Plymstock, Devon, and 43-year-old Michael Brass from Liverpool paid strangers to pose as divers needing decompression treatment.

Welsh's Fort Bovisand diving centre in Plymouth billed health trusts £6,500 each for treating the 37 fake victims.

Both men, who will be sentenced next month, pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to defraud at Plymouth Crown Court.

They were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud the NHS and perverting the course of justice.

The court heard Welsh and Brass only needed the real names, addresses, dates of birth and national insurance numbers of the supposed victims to carry out the fraud.

The Fort Hyperbaric diving centre at Fort Bovisand had its own decompression chamber which was also used to treat genuine cases of the bends. The condition is suffered by divers who surface too quickly and suffer nitrogen poisoning in their blood.

A hyperbaric chamber simulates deep sea conditions so the diver can gradually get rid of the condition as the pressure is reduced slowly.

The fraud was uncovered when police investigated two cases of divers from Liverpool who were supposedly treated at the chamber in Plymouth.

'Probable' jail terms

Mr Michael Fitton, QC, prosecuting, said the bogus claims of £250,000 were for 37 cases of patients allegedly treated between 1998 and 2002.

He said the health authorities had not carried out thorough checks other than on patients' details and that they were registered with their GPs.

"They did not challenge it very much and it therefore turned out to be quite a simple fraud to conduct," he told the jury.

"It was very easy money from just filling in forms and making up information using personal details and the money came in."

He said claims were made to 12 health authorities or trusts across Britain and the case was referred to the police by health officials in Merseyside.

Fort Hyperbaric claimed £6,500 for treating each of the divers, but the jury heard a number of those supposedly treated had never dived or even been to Plymouth. :shock:

Judge Ian Leeming, QC, said both men face probable jail terms.

Two other men who were linked to the diving company were cleared by the jury.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7549812.stm
 
This could have gone in Strange Folk too..

'Stolen art uncovered, is it yours?' appeals FBI
Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian, Wednesday August 13 2008 Article history

Wanted: the owners of 137 artworks discovered in an apartment in Manhattan, suspected stolen. The FBI is appealing for owners to come forward to claim the paintings and sculptures that were found in the Upper East Side - some of them stuffed under a bed - in one of the more unusual mysteries to fall to federal investigators.

The artworks were found in the apartment of an occasional art writer and genealogist called William M V Kingsland, who died in March 2006, aged 62, leaving no will. His collection of about 300 pieces - including works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Odilon Redon - was handed to two auction houses to sell off.

But over the past 18 months the relatively straightforward story of an intestate private art collector has slowly turned into a deepening mystery of double identities and theft. The alarm was first sounded when a gallery owner bought a portrait by John Singleton Copley of the Second Earl of Bessborough for $85,000 (£ 42,000).

Looking into its provenance, he found it had been stolen from Harvard University in 1971.

The FBI's specialist art crime unit was brought in to investigate, revealing further stolen works, including a bust by Giacometti valued at about $1m, which Kingsland had used as a doorstop. The sale in London of a small still-life by Giorgio Morandi for $600,000 was also rescinded after it was found to have been stolen.

The ultimate irony was that two works by Picasso that were on their way from his apartment to Christie's auction house were stolen by the removal workers in mid-transit. The paintings, valued at £30,000 each, were recovered, only to be identified as already having been stolen - from a New York gallery in 1967. 8)

As the legitimacy of the collection was unravelling, so was the identity of its owner. Kingsland was a well-known figure among art houses and within the rarefied world of Upper East Side high society. He presented himself as a bon viveur and expert on the genealogy of prominent local families. He told friends his middle initials stood for Milliken and Vanderbilt and that he lived on Fifth Avenue. But he very rarely invited anyone into his home and after his death a rather different picture emerged.

He was born in 1943 to Jewish refugees from Europe who lived in the Bronx. His name was Melvyn Kohn, which he changed aged 17 because he wanted a name that was more "literary sounding", according to his parents.

There was no Fifth Avenue address. Nor had he attended Harvard or been married to a French royal, as he had let it be known.

Colin Stair, whose auction house in Hudson, New York, was one of the two appointed to sell the collection, visited the Kingsland apartment in 72nd Street soon after he died. "It was frankly a mess. It was crammed floor to ceiling with art works - they were stuffed under the bed, over every surface."

Of the works that Stair Galleries have handled, at least four were stolen. Stair said he noticed a trend: "The smaller the items were, the more likely they were to have been stolen."

The FBI has now identified 20 stolen pieces but suspects that among the 137 whose provenance is still in doubt there could be many more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... ttheft.art
 
Think of all the times they shout, "Spread!" for zilch. Here is the day they hit the jackpot. It all sounds rather antique now - I'd expect a modern crook to have a card-swipe between his cheeks for instant identity-theft!

BBC Story


Cash-in-buttocks man in M25 ban

Abbott was caught on CCTV footage taken at Waterloo station

A man who stole cash and belongings from train passengers has been banned from entering London for two years.

Peter Abbott, 46, repeatedly boarded trains to take items from overhead racks, Southwark Crown Court was told.

When he was arrested in April, police discovered £280 in cash hidden between his buttocks.

Abbott was banned from going inside the M25 for two years and given a six-month suspended jail sentence. He must also stay at his father's Liverpool address.

Recorder Deborah Champion said: "That will prevent you from coming to London stations to steal."

Abbott was filmed on CCTV stealing a coat and £685 from a passenger on a Waterloo to Paddington service on 10 April.

He was stopped by police four days later when he was found with a wallet and credit cards taken from a man at Euston station, as well as the cash secreted in his pants.

The court heard Abbott had 44 previous convictions and a drug problem.

He was also given a 12-month supervision order and ordered to join a drug rehabilitation programme.
 
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/848554.html

Burglar victims wake to spice rub, sausage attack
By Louis Galvan / The Fresno Bee
09/06/08 21:55:06

A burglar who broke into a home just east of Fresno rubbed food seasoning over the body of one of two men as they slept in their rooms and then used an 8-inch sausage to whack the other man on the face and head before running out of the house, Fresno County sheriff's deputies said Saturday.

Lt. Ian Burrimond, describing the crime as one of the strangest he's ever heard of, said a suspect was found hiding in a nearby field a few minutes later and taken into custody on suspicion of residential robbery.

Deputies, he said, had no problem linking the suspect to the crime.

"It seems the guy ran out of the house wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts and socks, leaving behind his wallet with his ID," Burrimond said.

Arrested was Antonio Vasquez Jr., 21, of Fresno.

Burrimond said deputies headed to the victims' home in the 300 block of South Thompson Avenue near Kings Canyon Road shortly after 8 a.m. Saturday regarding a burglary in progress.

The victims, both farmworkers, told deputies they were awakened by a stranger applying "Pappy's Seasoning" to one of them and striking the other with a sausage.

Both the spices and the sausage, Burrimond said, reportedly were obtained from the victims' kitchen.

After the man fled, the victims discovered the home had been ransacked and that some money was taken, Burrimond said.

Burrimond said the money was recovered, but that the piece of sausage used in the attack was discarded by the suspect and eaten by a dog.

"That's right, the dog ate the weapon," Burrimond said.

"I tell you, this was one weird case."
Click to expand...

Could easily have gone in the World's Dumbest Criminals thread. Very serious case, though. Nothing funny about that at all.
 
Man jailed in 1973 for murder challenges conviction
A man who was jailed for life for the brutal murder of a typist 35 years ago has returned to court to try to clear his name.

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
Last Updated: 5:48PM BST 09 Sep 2008

George Beattie, 54, told his original trial that the woodland murder was carried out by men wearing top hats decorated with mirrors - in the style of the 1970s rock band Slade - while he was forced to watch.

The bizarre story was supposed to explain why he knew so much about the scene of the crime in Carluke, Lanarkshire.

But a jury took only 35 minutes in October 1973 to find Beattie guilty of the frenzied knife attack on 23-year-old Margaret McLaughlin.

He has always protested his innocence, although his first attempt to overturn the conviction never made it to court when he was refused leave to appeal.

The Secretary of State for Scotland later sent the case back to court in 1994 when appeal judges ruled that the guilty verdict should stand.

He has now been given another chance to prove his innocence by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

At the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh yesterday, Scotland's top judge Lord Hamilton, sitting with Lord Nimmo Smith and Lord Cullen, heard evidence from Prof Gisli Gudjonsson of Kings College, London, who has studied the way in which vulnerable suspects can be encouraged to agree to false stories.

Beattie claims that the jury at his trial should never have heard statements he is alleged to have made to detectives, and insists that he was bullied and at one point had his head held under water by officers.

He never confessed to the murder, and the Crown case relied heavily on his "special knowledge" which prosecutors said could only be known to Miss McLaughlin's killer or a witness to the murder.

But Beattie's maintain that all the information was already known to police and that the position of the body and clothing was common knowledge in the area.

They also claim that forensic tests later showed the knife which Beattie pointed out to police was unlikely to be the murder weapon.

Margaret McLaughlin left her home in Carluke on a Friday evening in July 1973 to catch a train to Glasgow.

Her route took her along a woodland path through an area known as Colonel's Glen. When her body was found she had been stabbed 19 times and robbed of a ring.

Beattie, who was 19 at the time, became a suspect after telling them he had been in the woods that evening. He worked in a steel mill and was regarded locally as a "misfit".

Detectives said he was able to point out where the murder knife had been repeatedly plunged into the ground to clean it. He also knew about clothing in a suitcase that the dead woman was carrying.

Beattie, who served 15 years of his life sentence before being released on licence, sat on the public benches during the hearing. The judges are expected to give a decision in writing.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ction.html
 
This case was featured in the 'Rough Justice' TV series and book many years ago. The 'mirrored top hat' image seems to have stuck in Beattie's mind after he watched Slade on 'Top Of The Pops' soon before he left his house around the time of the crime.
 
i remember that too, the slade thing stuck in my mind for sheer bizarrity.

wasn't he supposed to be mildly special needs or something? it sounds like the plod could have scared the crap out of him until he came up with any old bull they could use against him :(
 
Teens 'stabbed 666 times and eaten' in Satanic ritual
September 16, 2008

"

DEVIL worshippers in Russia butchered four teenagers in a Satanic ritual - stabbing them 666 times each and eating them.

The teens - a youth and three girls aged 16 or 17- had their gentitals mutilated and were cooked on a bonfire before being eaten, The Sun newspaper reported today.

Police found body parts dumped in a pit beside an upside-down cross, a symbol of Satanic worship, in a rural area of Russia, the newspaper said.

Eight people have been arrested over the slayings.

Police believed the teenagers, who were all friends, were lured to a cottage and encouraged to get drunk before they were slain.

The discovery in Yaroslavl, 480km from Moscow, has sent a shudder across Russia - where Satanists are feared to have committed a string of mutilations and killings.

The victims, who disappeared in June, were named as Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova, Varya Kuzmina and Andrei Sorokin.

Police began tracing the gang after finding out all the victims had made phone calls to alleged leader Nikolai Ogolobyak.

The rest of the cult were described by former teachers as being of low intelligence and moody.

Three were named by police as Ksenia Kuznetsova, Alexander Voronov and Anton Makovkin. "

Articles:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24 ... 09,00.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 692637.ece
 
'Torture chamber' found in Moscow

Moscow police investigating an alleged abduction have found what appears to be a torture chamber in a basement in an upmarket area of the Russian capital.

A cage and electric shock devices were found in the basement of a large house, Russia's Kommersant newspaper reported.

Police were led to the basement by a man who says he was tortured there.

The man, from southern Russia, was found in the street handcuffed and wearing only his underwear after he managed to escape, media reports say.

Magomed Khamkhoyev, a 35-year-old Ingush man, told police he had been kidnapped and tortured in the basement of the cottage in Serebryanny Bor, according to Kommersant.

He said his captors had shown him a corpse and threatened him with a similar fate.

A criminal investigation has been opened into Mr Khamkhoyev's abduction, Russian officials said in a statement.

Community leaders from Ingushetia, a troubled Russian republic in the North Caucasus, say up to 10 Ingush have gone missing in the capital this month.

Some media reports suggest Mr Khamkhoyev's kidnapping could have been linked to investigations into the disappearances.

Some of the abductions are believed to have been carried out as a revenge for the Beslan school seizure in North Ossetia in 2004, in which more than 330 people died, many of them children.

Some of the pro-Chechen attackers were ethnic Ingush.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 625547.stm
Click to expand...
 
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