Mick wasn't a bastard per se
But he kind of had to be in his job as a DSS fraud officer.

One tip off he got was about a bloke doing some work on the side, delivering Chinese takeaways. Mick decided to do a bit of surveillance work first, and started with the standard sitting outside the suspects house in his car, whilst listening to local radio (I fucking HATE local radio) and doing the crossword. Eventually, he spotted his man leaving the house and getting in his car.

Leaping into action like some sort of cut-price Dirty Harry, Mick followed his suspect to his destination - which did indeed turn out to be the local Chinese takeaway. Some more surveillance over a few nights seemed to confirm the reported undeclared work, made even more watertight by the fact that the suspect regularly went into the establishment empty handed and emerged a few minutes later with several bags of monosodium glutamate-loaded comestibles. Oh, and the fact that each time, he got into a van with the name of the takeaway plastered all over it.

At this point Mick decided to take action, and went into the takeaway once the guy had returned from a delivery. He engaged him in polite conversation, asked if he'd had a busy night, order his chips and gravy, and disappeared into the night.

The next day he sent a letter out asking the bloke to attend an interview at the DSS. Two days later, the guy turned up and was ushered to an interview room. Where he was greeted by an insanely-grinning Mick.

"All right, mate"? said Mick. "Have a seat".

"Fuckin' bastard" was all the bloke could muster, before handing over his UB40 and signing off.

Nice bloke though. Honest.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 29 Jan 2008, 16:11, 3 replies)

"Leaping into action like some sort of cut-price Dirty Harry"
bravo!

*click*
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Tue 29 Jan 2008, 16:18, closed)

DSS fraud officer...
there's an occupation guaranteed to stop conversation at a party!
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Tue 29 Jan 2008, 18:28, closed)

WeeWitch...
Quite. Or even just working for said establishment.

Actually, when I was there I was like a magnet for scrotes wanting to know how to buck the system. My response was usually 'try working there - then you'll get to know all the loopholes in the system'.

They usually fucked off after that.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Tue 29 Jan 2008, 20:04, closed)