Saturday, April 28, 2007

Barking Mad

Fighting crime UK-style.

A TEENAGER was taken to court at a cost of £8,000 — for BARKING at two dogs.

JPs found Kyle Little guilty of a public order offence and fined him £50, before a judge saw sense and quashed the conviction.

Apparently the chap in question was having some sort of contretemps with the local constables and was told to mind his language. He did and then barked at two dogs as he walked past a house. This being modern Britain the not-at-all spiteful law enforcement sprang into action.

Sgt Douglas Johnston and PC Daniel Peacock arrested him.

Magistrates convicted him of causing harassment, alarm or distress to the dogs’ owner Sunita Vedhara — even though she did not complain.


Thankfully, there remain some in the legal saystem who have not completely lost their marbles-

But the farce finally came to an end when Judge Beatrice Bolton overturned the ruling, fuming: “The law is not an ass.”


Here's how this story played out-

Afterwards Kyle, a jobless labourer, told how chocolate labradors Princess and Ruby had bounded up to the gate at Sunita’s home.


He said: “They were both barking their heads off and so I did a daft little growl and
went ‘woof, woof’ at them.

“The next thing I knew
I was grabbed by the two police officers who bent my arms up behind my back and handcuffed me. I was in a cell for about five hours.”

Sunita, who has a son Karen, 13, said: “He was messing about being a daft young lad. The dogs weren’t really upset.


We didn’t want him prosecuted, but the police said he was being taken to court, which we found surprising.”

And what do the local police have to say about it- will the two officers face any kind of action over this huge waste of taxpayers' money and abuse of power? Well, you can guess the answer to that-

A spokesman for Northumberland Police vowed: “We will be looking at what happened and if a mistake has been made we will learn from this.”

If a mistake has been made? Seems to me that they haven't learned anything at all.

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