Council officials go all bureaucratic, handing out penalties for ‘non’ offences
British police officers carry out security checks on traffic lights, lamp posts and drains along the Mall leading to Buckingham Palace (Background) in central London, on April 14, 2011. PHOTO | ANTHONY DEVLIN | AFP
What you need to know:
When George Farrell and his girlfriend broke up, Farrell took his revenge with actions which a judge described as “heartless and cruel”.
Mr Claxton knew he had left the permit on the windscreen in his locked car and so he accessed the council website which contains photographs of “offending” vehicles.
Britain seems to have been seized with a bout of political correctness, officiousness and pettifogging bureaucracy.
Take the case of Lee Williamson. This 43-year-old ex-soldier had several times noticed a homeless man sleeping rough on a pavement in Leicester. The weather was freezing and it got so bad that Lee could not sleep at night for thinking of him.
So on Christmas Day he drove to where the man was huddled on the sidewalk and gave him a hat, gloves, scarves and food. To do that, however, Lee had pulled into a bus lane, which is a traffic offence for ordinary cars, although being Christmas Day, there were no buses.
To his astonishment, he received a £70 penalty charge from the Council.
Then there was the happy lollipop man, Colin Spencer, 83, who has guided children safely across the road at St George’s Primary School in Heaviley, Stockport, for 14 years. One thing Mr Spencer did which the kids loved was to give them all high-fives.
HUMOURLESS
Not anymore. In a peerless example of humourless, po-faced officialdom, a spokesperson for Stockport Council said, “School crossing patrols (i.e. lollipop men and ladies) are required to continually observe the road and traffic conditions.” Mr Spencer, the person said, “has been asked to stop high-fiving and concentrate on his core duty.”
Most parents were furious and some children were in tears when Mr Spencer didn’t high-five them anymore.
Case number 3: Oliver Claxton from Derby had been working away in London for several months and when he returned, he was surprised to discover that he had been fined £70 for not displaying a parking permit for his car.
Mr Claxton knew he had left the permit on the windscreen in his locked car and so he accessed the council website which contains photographs of “offending” vehicles.
He said: “The reason the permit wasn’t visible was because it had snowed overnight and the windscreen was covered in snow. If they had swept the snow away, they would have seen the permit. It was ridiculous.”
Mr Claxton challenged the fine and Derby City Council said it was looking into the case.
PUBLIC OUTCRY
As for Lee Williamson, after a public outcry, the mayor rescinded the penalty charge, saying, “To punish him for doing a good deed on Christmas Day is crazy.”
With regard to the lollipop man, the council relented to the extent of declaring that high-fiving was OK on the pavement but not on the road.
* * *
When George Farrell and his girlfriend broke up, Farrell took his revenge with actions which a judge described as “heartless and cruel”.
Breaking into the girl’s flat, he cut up some of her clothes, smeared ice cream and mint sauce on others, covered her bed in ketchup, filled her games console with shower gel, smashed a Sky box and opened a bath tap and left it running.
In her kitchen he damaged a slow cooker, a microwave, a kettle and a toaster and he bent a pan out of shape.
He then sent text messages boasting about what he had done and bombarded the girl with telephone calls saying he was going to wait for her and slit her throat.
ASSESSED DAMAGE
Police went to the flat and found the water running. Damage was assessed at more than £1,500.
Judge Anthony Kelbrick, said, “It is hard to imagine the distress that must have been caused to somebody who goes into their home and finds this has been done in their absence.”
Farrell, aged 23, of Sunderland, had 14 previous convictions for such offences as harassment, arson and assault and battery.
The judge told him, “You pose a significant risk to the public and in particular to women who become your partner.”
He sentenced Farrell to four years in jail with an extended licence period of two years.
* * *
Talking to an elderly friend on the telephone, I wanted to mention a particular health condition but could not remember its name. She knew what I meant but could not remember the name either. Eventually, we got it: senile dementia.
* * *
A teacher wrote the following on the blackboard, “woman without her man is nothing,” and asked the class to punctuate it.
The male students wrote, “Woman, without her man, is nothing.” The females wrote, “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.”
A guy walks into a bar, orders 10 whiskies and starts drinking them in rapid succession. When the bar tender remarked that he was drinking very fast, he replied, “So would you if you had what I have.” “What have you got?” the barman asked. “He replied, “Only 75 cents.”
