We have certain regular customers in the Magistrates' Court and one of these was before my Bench one Friday afternoon a few weeks ago.
With a record of low level acquisitive offences, this woman just refuses to accept that she can't have everything she wants when she wants it.
So, benefit fraud, shoplifting, running an unlicensed child minding service, prostitution, abstracting electricity. The last one being particularly relevant. She was said to have bridged the meter yet again and owed the utility company some £680.
Needless to say, she had no money so her fine was consolidated with her regular £5 per week "get out of jail free payment".
What causes me to remark is that I chose to go over to Sainsbury's to re-fuel VeeKay at 8:45 in the evening yesterday to avoid the usual pre-Christmas mayhem had I done so at an earlier hour.
My route takes me past the house where the individual mentioned above lives. If anybody knows Wolverhmpton, it's in the Third Avenue area where you don't ever go slower than 30 mph and hope you'll never break down and you hope the pistol the 10 year old boy is brandishing is just a remarkably lifelike replica. You get the picture?
This woman's house was remarkably easy to spot in the darkness. The glow above it was visible from Showell Circus, some distance away. Almost every square inch of the frontage and the side of the house, that could be seen from the road, including the windows, was blazing with illuminated Christmas decorations. The front garden, normally a treacherous assault course of old scrap, was pulsating with just about every imaginable full size Santa Claus, Elf, Fairy and a full six reindeer and sleigh along with the usual signs exhorting Santa to stop and several neon adorned Christmas trees. I'd estimate that there was barely room to squeeze up to the front door from the pavement, such was the density of these decorations.
"Good grief", I said to myself, as I drove past, "I wonder what sort of electricity bill they can expect in the new year"... Silly me.
With a record of low level acquisitive offences, this woman just refuses to accept that she can't have everything she wants when she wants it.
So, benefit fraud, shoplifting, running an unlicensed child minding service, prostitution, abstracting electricity. The last one being particularly relevant. She was said to have bridged the meter yet again and owed the utility company some £680.
Needless to say, she had no money so her fine was consolidated with her regular £5 per week "get out of jail free payment".
What causes me to remark is that I chose to go over to Sainsbury's to re-fuel VeeKay at 8:45 in the evening yesterday to avoid the usual pre-Christmas mayhem had I done so at an earlier hour.
My route takes me past the house where the individual mentioned above lives. If anybody knows Wolverhmpton, it's in the Third Avenue area where you don't ever go slower than 30 mph and hope you'll never break down and you hope the pistol the 10 year old boy is brandishing is just a remarkably lifelike replica. You get the picture?
This woman's house was remarkably easy to spot in the darkness. The glow above it was visible from Showell Circus, some distance away. Almost every square inch of the frontage and the side of the house, that could be seen from the road, including the windows, was blazing with illuminated Christmas decorations. The front garden, normally a treacherous assault course of old scrap, was pulsating with just about every imaginable full size Santa Claus, Elf, Fairy and a full six reindeer and sleigh along with the usual signs exhorting Santa to stop and several neon adorned Christmas trees. I'd estimate that there was barely room to squeeze up to the front door from the pavement, such was the density of these decorations.
"Good grief", I said to myself, as I drove past, "I wonder what sort of electricity bill they can expect in the new year"... Silly me.
Paul
Cogito ergo sum... maybe?
Click the image to go to Nano-Meet Website
Cogito ergo sum... maybe?
Click the image to go to Nano-Meet Website
