Luton.
A couple of friends of mine wen tto university in this town and told me a few good stories. Their flat faced onto a road with a pub at either end and a line of flats on the opposite side.

My friend woke up at about 2 in the morning to plaintive calls and mews from a man staggering down the street. He was clutching his stomach and calling for help.

"Help, help me, please, I've been stabbed!"

My friend went to get the phone and came back to find that he wasn't the only one alerted to this poor man's plight. A window opened on the other side of the road and a man leant out.

"Keep it down, you fucking prick, some of us are trying to sleep!"

Nice.
( Kroney, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:30, Reply)

Don't steal stuff from my dad!
Years ago when my dad used to work as an engineer dealing with pin brazing, (something to do with trains and tracks and welding i think, i was only little) he used to have loads of equipment in our garage for carrying out said works. Naturally, because it was quite a specialist area, the stuff was quite expensive, and also heavy.
We wake up one saturday morning, and find that the garage has been robbed, along with our neighbour, who happens to be a carpenter and so also had stuff nicked from his garage on the same night. Bummer, thinks us, lots of expensive stuff gone, thats gonna cost us a fortune.
However, as mentioned before, the pin brazing stuff is quite heavy, and my dad, in a moment of einstein-like lucidity of thought, decides that they can't have got far (although looking back, they could have more than resonably had a car). And, lo and behold, after less than a ten minute search, he discovers where the thieves have stashed all his stuff (where we lived backed on to some shrubby wasteland that had yet to be developed, so it's not a load of toss).
Now, my dad, being the kind of chap who doesnt like people moving a screwdriver out of its box without telling him, isn't exactly chirpy about little shits trying to steal his stuff. So he collaborates with our neighbour, Dave, to ambush them when they return to collect it the next day. So, Dave and my dad are camped out at night waiting for them to turn up, and, as predicted, two of them do. They jump from the bushes, scare the shit out of these two spotty pikeys, and proceed to give them a bit of a beating. Then the police are called, and all is well.

Oh and before the police got there, they got them to carry all the stuff back to the respective garages. My dad said "why have a dog and bark?". Made me well proud when I was 5 :D
(Dovvit bee, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:17, Reply)

It wasn't me
Walking through town a couple of years ago I had the distinct impression I was being followed.
Every time I walked passed a security guard they started talking into their walkie talkies.

Eventually I was stopped in Boots by a uniformed copper and asked where I'd been that morning. I told him and he then said 'ok then, it's just that you match the description of a woman who did over a Post Office this morning'!!
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:14, Reply)

Full of shit
I came to know a bloke through my brother who was a bit of an odd sort. He was a loner, never worked a day in his life, and like re-constituting fireworks to make (VERY) bigger bangs without pretty colours.

Being in my teens and enjoying shooting etc myself, I was quite interested in his talk of guns and ballistics. I thought he was generally full of shit though, until...

I did my brother a favour of returning to this lad a length of chain and padlock that had been loaned (something to do with a motorbike) and received quite a surprise when turning into his street to find police vehicles and personnel of all descriptions, most notably a bomb disposal unit! I just knew it had to be him.

I shit you not, I've seen an armed seige (maybe post later) and there weren't as many police there as I seen here. They looked pretty nervous too.

It transpired later (I see him around occasionally and asked a few years later) that his scummy neighbours (it was a rather shitty area) had been running a catalogue scam with his address, intercepting the post and goods in the communal hallway of his block. A plain-clothed officer had knocked on his door in connection to that and had been told politely where to go while a pistol was pointed at his groin through the letterbox. Obviously armed response was then called in and they took his flat apart.

I can't honestly recall the list (it was substantial) of things they siezed from him, mostly handguns, and specifically his 'pride & joy' sniper rifle (he was especialy proud upon hearing an armed-response officer say "Here, some of these are better than ours!"). The bomb squad was allegedly called from Catterick army garrison when they discovered his stash of explosives. According to him (he may have exaggerated) the arsenal they found was large enough to arm a rampage of a proportion to make international headlines. I also know that most of his dodgy stuff was kept in various hidden/buried cache's in the surrounding countryside.

He and his flatmate/sidekick/apprentice didn't spend very much time at all in prison, which I found rather dubious. This was way before all the current terror scares though (90's). Whenever I speak to him these days, he spouts off about conspiracy theories involving government agencies and extra-terrestial beings, the illuminati etc. Generally I think he's just a layabout and full of shit.

I just realised I've thought that about him before. I was VERY wrong. Ooh fuck!


(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:07, Reply)

Griffin Close #2: So Many Police…
This is a crime I didn’t witness. Partly because it was less a crime than a misunderstanding; partly because I was asleep. But I was nearby, and it did involve many, many police.

Griffin Close was home to close on 1000 freshers from Birmingham University, and I have mentioned before that I used to be a PG supervisor there. There were four supervisors’ flats, and we would have one week on duty followed by three off. There was usually five people per flat, and we’d take it in turns to be the one who slept with the duty mobile phone next to us.

One morning, I wandered into the kitchen for breakfast to find R looking drained. He had had the mother of all duty calls. I pulled up a chair and he recounted his story, which he had pieced together as best he could from the various witnesses.

Having gone to the union one evening, one of our charges returned home in the small hours drunk, frisky, and dragging some poor unfortunate with her for a bout of genital judo. As is often the way of these things, the unfortunate in question was not to be identified with her extant boyfriend, who turned up at her flat a little while after she and her newfound spunkmonkey. As spunkmonkey began to bang her, her suspicious, angry and drunk boyfriend began to bang at the door.

Spunkmoney decided – rather wisely – that it would be wise to get out of her and her flat as promptly as possible. But, with only one door, this would be tricky. Rather less wisely, he decided that jumping from the window would be a good idea. From the ground floor flats, he would certainly have got away with it. But he was on the second floor. The odds of avoiding injury were not in his favour.

Nevertheless, he pushed at the window. The pane dislodged and embedded itself, excalibur-like, in the turf below. Spunkmoney followed and, from the dent in the ground, missed the glass by the tiniest of margins. Yet he was unhurt. Naked, but unhurt.

Now: this is where things get interesting. Apparently, one of the factors that the police use when determining what kind of response to send to a reported incident is a function of the number and kind of calls that they get about it. Suddenly, they started to get a lot of calls from Griffin Close. Some were in relation to events at the flat, where shouting, damage to a front door, damage to a window and a vicious fight between an apparently wronged boyfriend and his erstwhile partner had alternately entertained and terrified the neighbours, and where and assorted death threats to assorted people had been issued. By all accounts, the boyfriend looked to be in the mood to make good on those threats. Other calls were in relation to a naked youth who had been seen hiding in various bushes around the site. The police, not unreasonably, decided that they had to respond in some force.

So it was that we were visited by several riot vans with an armed tactical response unit on its way in respect of an attempted murder believed currently to be in progress, and a helicopter with a bright spotlight searching the area for a sex pest.

And I slept through it all.

Length? Well, the entry in the duty log went over a number of pages…
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 13:01, Reply)

poor copper
I was on my way to the house of some friends (now, sadly, separated, but that's another story) for an evening of dinner and recreational drug abuse. They live in Earlsfield, South-West London. Normally quite a nice area, but then again this is London so you can never be too careful (especially south of the river).

As I exited the station at the crossroads, I noticed a pair of coppers having a discussion with a young man across the road. Being a nosy type, I decided to stop and watch, in case anything interesting happened. I take a guilty pleasure in watching people being arrested: it gives me a great sense of smugness, especially when I'm carrying several grams of Bolivia's finest in my pocket as I was on this evening.

The chap in question looked nefarious from the off: baseball cap swung at a criminal angle under a big black hoody, jeans barely covering his boxers so they ruffled down over a pair of impossibly white trainers with the enormous tongue poking up from where his shoelaces should have been. He was shifting nervously from foot to foot, and becoming incresingly agitated as the policemen started to frisk him. When the long arm of the law reached towards his jeans pocket, he bolted.

Managing a turn of speed possessed only of the gazelle and the criminal underclass, he dashed over the crossing towards me, but the fuzz weren't giving up. The first policeman was closing on him, readying himself for a tackle, when the crim pulled a sports-drink bottle from somewhere in the dark recesses of his hoody, turned, and squirted a stream of clear liquid straight into the oncoming lawman's face. The copper screamed as it hit him and dropped to his knees. The second pursuing officer hesitated for a second before he too was hit in the chest and the neck. He stumbled and just caught his balance, stopping by his fallen colleague as their target raced away up the street.

I approached the first policeman cautiously. He was stripping off his knife-proof vest and shirt, obviously in pain as he did so. Shaking, he stared at his hands. The skin on his hands and forehead was turning white and there was an acrid smell about him which reminded me of the chemistry labs at school: he'd been hit by acid. He gasped, "water". I and another woman who'd seen the incident sprinted to nearby pubs to fetch buckets of water. The news that policemen had been attacked in the street brought quite a crowd of drinkers out to gawp as the two unfortunate officers washed themselves off and inspected their wounds.

Within minutes three police cars, a van and an ambulance schreeched up and the two injured policemen were attended to while their newly arrived colleagues cordoned off the crossing. As a helicopter began circling overhead, no-one seemed interested in taking a statement from me so I decided to leave them to it and join my friends to partake in, rather than witness, a crime of our own.

Two things stay with me from this. One, the assailant passed within yards of me as he made his escape. I'm 6'3'' and used to play rugby. If I'd been a bit faster-thinking I could have tackled him. I'm ashamed to say the thought never occurred to me at the time, but looking back on it I probably would have received similar treatment to the policemen. Should I have tried to take him down?

Two, I know that assaulting a police officer is a serious crime, but the speed and size of the response took me by surprise. I wonder what kind of police prescence there would have been had it been me who was the victim instead?


Length? Several years hopefully, but I doubt they caught the bastard
(pmsc, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:58, Reply)

fire, water, burn
Dublin 1998. I was living just off O'Connell Street in an area where every second house was a brothel and people were shooting up in the supermarket doorways. The night I moved in, three people were stabbed in an amusement arcade around the corner. Still, it was cheap, although my ex-fiance preferred it if I didn't go outside alone at night. That was fine by me - it meant he had to do the Spar run for extra Custard Creams.

One night we arrived home from a pretty good party in another part of the Fair City. We staggered to our cheap single beds and pulled the wafer thin duvets over us. It was 2am and the sound of sirens lulled us to sleep...

...until 3am. As I awoke from my semi-drunken coma I could hear an unbearable high-pitched noise and some frantic banging and shouting. I was preparing myself to shout abuse at the source of the racket and fall back into slumber when our flatmate burst into the room dressed only in a pair of novelty boxers.

"Fire!" he yelled. "We've got to get out!"

We blinked at him, fairly uncomprehending.

"The. Building. Is. On. Fire." he gulped.

Sure enough, that explained the alarms and the shouts. Convinced that it was a tiny little birthday cake candle-sized flame somewhere I lackadaisically pulled on some jeans and shoes.

We assembled by our front door. I could smell smoke too, and was getting cross that my night's sleep had been interrupted by this sorry excuse for an inferno.

I've done Health and Safety training. Hell, I was a Brownie. I know about fire. Why, then, did it not occur to me to feel the back of the door before opening it?

We opened it. The corridor was dim, glowing and filled - completely filled - with smoke. It was also a little too warm for comfort. Warm in a kind of a flamey way. There were flames in the middle of it. We shut the door again and looked at each other, panic rising.

"Er, crawl?" was my suggestion, and so we did - we opened the door, dropped to the floor and inched our way along the wall until we reached the stairs. The stairwell was less smoky, and we sprinted down three flights to the ground floor where a burly Dublin fireman was holding his breath, a hose and the door open.

We reached the street and watched as it filled up with a selection of Dublin's finest nightwear and novelty slippers. In half an hour the fireman had extinguished the blaze and were able to tell us that some complete shit had brought bags of rubbish into our apartment block, set one on fire and sent it in the lift to our floor, and then blocked the main exit with more burning rubbish.

"Could've been bad, lads, but yez are fine" they announced, not worrying about details like the rasping coughs that half the street had suddenly developed.

When we returned to our flat everything was covered in soot and smoke - the white walls were streaked black and grey, the carpets stank, the acrid smell of burning plastic hung in the air for days.

No one witnessed the arsonist. No one seemed to know why anyone would torch the only semi-decent building in the street. I got a half day at work the next day when I mentioned to my boss what had happened. That was good, because I was nursing an enormous hangover, though in retrospect it probably would have been better to not have been in an arson attack.

Length? One of those really big hoses.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:56, Reply)

We witnessed, we entrapped, we got them busted.

During the early 90’s, got transferred to a night security station in a tired government office block. Was a two man site, so me and the other guard would keep ourselves amused by buggering about with the row of CCTV feeds in our office from the array of cameras situated about the site. “Police, camera, action” it wasn’t. For one thing we didn’t know what we were doing, so couldn’t operate them properly. Nor were we that interested and really only used them to follow the progress of each other as we took turns to do a walkabout of the site every two hours.
It did pass for amusement to encounter an impassive glaring camera that would start “Nodding “ and spinning erratically when you walked under it. A few times the dayshift guards, after taking over would question why some cameras were trained directly skywards, like some kind of stoned Johnny-five.

One camera overlooked the front carpark, and from there onto a quiet side street with a telephone box. This camera became our source of idle viewing at the infrequent pedestrians that would amble along, mainly bored Chavs, dog walkers and other night dwellers.

My work mate who clearly displayed a more advanced state of “stir-crazy” than myself got the number from the telephone box and took to ringing the phone when we observed anyone walking past it, then ring off just before they would lift the receiver, only to ring back when they were walking off. Tedious I know, but a welcome distraction despite nudging a few perfectly decent members of the public to the edge of their sanity.

Then one night we saw three Hoodie-types swaggering along in that stupid exaggerated walk, looking in car windows and yelling at each other with animated hand gestures. We sat up and observed them silently with growing contempt. One of them tossed a half full milkshake to the ground as they passed our phonebox.
My workmate hissed and grabbed the phone and rang the number.
Chav.1 “Yeah Hello?”
SG: “PICK …THAT… UP!!”
Chav.1 .Ah dunno who it is…OOO ARE YA?
SG: None of yours, Pond-life, just pick up the shake!.

Hence insults, threats, observations about our mothers ensued. To our credit we gave plenty back, ridiculing them on their elaborate dress sense, the way they swaggered about like drunk-chimps, we really were running rings round them. They had to be F**kwitts or smashed cos none of them made the connection that we could see them despite dropping these cast iron hints. They then resorted to violence, obviously cos they couldn’t find us, they chose the phone box itself. Attempting to put the booth windows through, trying to smash the receiver.
We watched with disdainful enthusiasm at the image of these three lunatics blurring round the booth in frenzied showmanship. “Oh yeah. This is brilliant, we gotta shop em”.

A call with the words “Security, Government building, observing real-time criminal damage etc”. The police must have been as bored as we were, to say they hit the ground running weren’t even close. My workmate and I observed some truly conclusive police work, bodies stretched over the bonnet, a few subtle extra elbows and knees here and there to soften them up. It made a real highlight reel.
The police never asked us for further info, guess they figured it wasn’t needed as they caught them in the act. I will never forget Chav.1 head bowed, shrunken shouldered, gingerly replace the handset and step out to face the music.

Length? No.. no, not even a stretch…. maybe 50 hours community service. Tops
(Eeeza bit Tidy A blink, a pause, a blush and then I knew., Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:46, Reply)

Someone I know had a rough time in the early 80s
There he was, completely wasted, out of work and down. Frustrated he drifted from town to town, feeling like nobody cared whether he lived or died.
Then he decided to get some action in his life.
So he and his mates got tooled up, robbed a local bank and seized a valuable golden disk before making their getaway in a big white car.
(Big D, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:41, 3 replies)

Rough local
There I was, just minding my own business playing a set with my band in the local, when these two came in. I should have realised there was going to be trouble when another two of their mates (one big camp bugger and a shortarse with some sort of speech impediment) were stopped at the door. Their mates told to go and wait back in the car. Obviously it wasn't going to be long before it kicked off.

Now, the other two - I assume that must have been a grandfather and grandson or something, as one was about 70, while the other was in his teens. They didn't look like they were the trouble making kind, but it wasn't long before the young one got into an argument at the bar with a couple of the local hardcases.

One of the hardcases starts spouting off about how he's wanted by the fuzz, starts threatening the kid, and ends up giving him a thump and knocking him half-way across the room. I don't know what the kid said to him, but it must have pissed him off, as he ends up pulling a gun.

Now, it takes a bit to get put me off my rhythm, but what happened next had the band ducking for cover.

The old man - quick as a flash - whips out a sword. A sword!!! In this day and age! Anyway, before anyone does anything else, the hardcase's right arm's on the ground, quickly followed by the rest of him. Everybody suddenly becomes very interested in their drinks, and the manager's motioning to me to start playing again while he sorts things out.

Now it turns out that while all this was kicking off, the old man was talking to to barman. He's been looking for a dodgy character for some dirty job or other. The barman points him at this smartarse in the corner and his long-haired hippy mate, and he drags the kid over to talk to them.

So, we (the band) are setting back down into the set, but I'm keeping an eye on what's going on.

The old geezer and the kid finish their business, shake hands and piss off. I breathe a sigh of relief and start to relax. The place may be a wretched hive of scum and villany, but the regulars aren't normally too bad.

It looks like the smartarse and the hippy have got a good deal, as they look happy, and they're making to head off too when one of the local wannabe gangsters corners them and sits smartarse back down again.

I can't claim to have seen what happened next. Anyway, guns were pulled again - under the table this time - and the gangster was shot. Certainly there's been a lot of debate about it locally - who shot first? The end result though, was that the smartarse paid off the manager to hush things up, and scarpered quickly.

Anyway. Back to the QOTW. The crime I witnessed, well heard, was our drummer's playing. He was absolutely shocking that night and we fired him shortly after.

Mind you, the exact details are a little hazy as this was all a long time ago, somewhere far, far away...
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:33, 8 replies)

Crime witnessed me, not quite inline with the qotw but kinda
I had been out walking on the beach, enjoying the sun, walking hand in hand with my gf, wonderful start to the day, we stopped at a restaurant for some beasty club sandwiches and a pint. The weather was scorching, and, after a lunchtime drink, we decided we'd go and sleep off the previous late night with a early afternoon nap.

Well naps start off innocent enough and you can probably guess what happened, anyway, after an hour or so napping and fooling about, we were both quite awake and went for a shower (This story does have a point I promise), I was finished before my lovely lady and I went to sit in the kitchen window and watch the world go by.

I noticed after a few minutes that there seemed to be some sort of commotion outside, there were people pointing at my flat and I saw a flash of a police uniform, I lent out of the window and saw 2 cops talking into their walkie talkies and staring right at me, not good me thinks.

I shout upstairs "I think someone has called the police on us, I'm going down stairs"

I approach the policeman and say "Is there a problem here?" Cue me getting shoved against the wall, and "you better start telling us what's been going on" he says.

I invite the cops upstairs and 4 more turn up, turns out some crazy lady in the cafe near my flat had told the police I'd been pointing a gun at her!! The armed response unit turned up and the police grilled me for about an hour saying "if you hadn't invited us up we'd have kicked the door in carrying our rifles." If I hadn't spotted them outside I could've been shot! This is what they said to me. Fuck.

The woman who made the allegation was seen walking swiftly away from the cafe when the cops weren't looking with a smile on her face. WTF?!

The police ended up confiscating a BB gun I had in the bottom of my wardrobe, in a shoebox, under a pile of old rubbish. They asked if I had anything that resembled a firearm so I went and got that out. They knew I'd done nothing wrong but insisted on lecturing me anyway.

I guess they were doing their job but these fellas were not mucking around, they refused to listen to a word I said, rolled their eyes when I said I was anti-gun, told me that the CCTV I requested wasn't required as there was a witness, spoke to their superiors saying I was playing Hi-jinks, generally treated me like shit and told me how much serious trouble I was in even though there was no weapon.

I'm not the hardest of people and you could say I'm kinda sensitive, this did not help. I'd done nothing wrong yet felt like shit. This all ended with them realizing there was nothing going on, I didn't even get a ref no. because there was no write up on it, they apologized and shaking my hand, no further trouble for me. "Go enjoy the rest of your weekend mate" they said, yeah right.

I don't hate the police but I wonder what drove a women to report a complete stranger for something they'd not done??

weekend ruined - confidence shattered. Sorry for length.

p.s Then my radiator fell off my wall and flooded my bedroom. Pissflaps.
( SauronWibble I'll hold it, you lick it..., Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:26, 3 replies)

way back in the distant days of the early nineties
I used to work in a certain nightclub in south manchester -Fridays- the place was punchup central in any case, but I did have the misfortune one night to see a truly horrifying incident where two battersby-alikes went for it ('are you fooking looking at my boyfriend you slag' etc.). One smashed a bottle and dragged the broken end up and down the other girls leg (she had a really short skirt on). An ambulance was called, the cops arrived and the carpet where the girl had collapsed was literally awash with blood.

Prior to that, I'd been working in another place round the corner from the Hacienda, which was interesting to say the least - the owner was (allegedly) in hock to the doormen for a fair chunk of change for his coke habit, and the doormen themselves were fending off the attentions of another manchester gang who wanted their business.

One of the chefs nearly blew himself to pieces one morning, after it was found the gas had been left on all night in what appeared to be an attempt at torching the place for the insurance, the place was done over at gunpoint at least once (as well as the rival gang coming in several times tooled up and looking for trouble), and shortly prior to the owner doing a runner to the US and the accountant disappearing to the Bahamas, the place was robbed.

The police said they'd be happy to sign off on things for the insurance company... just as soon as the owner could explain how the thieves had had the keys to the front door, the code for the alarm and the combination for the safe. duh.
(tjn whizzing on the electric fence of life, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:19, 1 reply)

Not your smartest travelers.......
I used to be a member of a Sporting clays shoot, which was located in a copse in the middle of some fields. The shoot had been there for years and never had any problems, untill some Travelers decided to pitch up a couple of fields away. They had only been there a matter of days when our first shoot of the year was on and when we got to the copse, all of the stuff that was left there buy the shoot had either been nicked or trashed (nothing to important but fucking anoying).

Then during the shoot a shit load of travelers decided that they were going to come over and have a nose about. Which was a bit unnerving as the stupid twats were popping up out of the bushes that the clays were passing! How they any of them didnt get a buckshot parting ill never know. So on saftey grounds we stopped the shoot a a couple of the members went over to the camp to expalin that every second sunday this would be happening (we decided to be nice about, even though we were pretty much sure that they knicked our tower and other stuff, as you know how much grief travelers can cause)

Anyways the next shoot a few weeks later passed without event, but on the third a group of them turned up accusing us of shooting one of their horses and the vets bill was £2000 of which they didnt have a copy of!

The head of the shoot then pointed out that:
a. none of the targets were in the direction of the camp.
b. even if it was the camp was about a mile away any buckshot wouldnt get anywere near that range
c. to Fuck off.

At this point all the usual threats were leveled "I know your face" "your gonna pay" etc. and they pissed off only to reappear a hour later tooled up with baseball bats and other pointy stuff which in most cases would have been a great cause for alarm, unfortunatly what they had seemed to forget was that this was a shoot, and as they came into the clearing where we were all gathered they were greeted by approx 12 guys with shotguns and more ammo that your average mossside estate standing drinking coffee.

"can we help you gents with anything?" one of the members asked. At which point they turned and quickly left.

Thankfully the police moved them on the following week, unfortunalty not after they had the chance to trash and burn half the copse down! Wankers.

But im sure that you will agree not the Sharpest tools in the box
( caffeinefreak, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:15, 1 reply)

media led fear, plus her boyfrind made her do it!
thought the media we each witness over 4000 violent crimes a year. even though 60% of us will not experience ANY crime of ANY kind in the same period of time.

the other 40% work in morrisons.

When I did my stint at the supermarket, I started about a week after one of the mangers was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by a mental who didn't want to pay for fags.

Over the period of my employment at least one shoplifter a shift would be apprehended*. To be fair this was fun to watch as all the departmental mangers would dogpile the would be thief and put the boot in.

This wasn't really much good as most of the criminal activity went on the wherehouse. Behind closed doors those mild mannered shelf stackers had their own fight club, lived off stolen pick and mix, and played football with the most expensive items. Sadly this stopped after a wherehouse department night on the town got the entire staff arrested**, throwing the place into chaos the next day.

However a catalyst for my leaving was my part in having to help restrain a crackhead.

A skinny woman about five foot tall ran off with two bottles of JD and a customers purse. This waif of a woman took out two security guards with violent groin attacks. and was only stopped by three of the fattest till workers sitting on her (combined weight 65 stone). Despite this she was still struggling and screaming "its not my fault my boyfriend told me to do it!" . She manged to get her arm free, at witch point I grabbed onto it and forced it to the floor with all my weight on it. The source of her strength the became apparent as a still warm crack pipe was flicked from her tracksuit pocket.

The police arrived about 5 mins later and they knew her by name. With an officer on each arm they dragged her out the store while she was yelling "ive changed my mind, ILL PAY, ILL PAY. its all my bf's fault"

as my shift ended my mate showed up.

"how was your day?"

"not too bad, chips for lunch and I helped restrain a crackhead. I clock off in 5, wanna go down the pub and help draft my notice?"



*only supermarket in the area to not tag the booze

**not sure why, i think a mixture of drunk and disorderly, twoccing, and breaking and entering.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:10, 8 replies)

God's honest truth
Many years ago, a mate of mine Thin Irish Phil was wandering home in the mountainous region around Cork and Kerry when he spotted a soldier bloke he knew Something Farrell his name was, I think. Anyway, Thin Irish Phil spots that this Farrell bloke is loaded and thinks “I’ll have that”. He produces his gun, then his big knife and tells him to hand over the cash, or he’d send him to hell. So he ends up taking all his money, and it was a pretty penny, I can tell you, and runs home to his missus, Molly. Thin Irish Phil trusted his missus not to grass him up, but he shouldn’t have coz she got him hammered on whiskey, which she kept in a jam-pot, until he was really tired then took him up to her room to sleep (which he much preferred to fishing, hunting or fighting). Some time between 5 and 7 the next morning, Farrell bursts into Molly’s room, with his soldier mates. Thin Irish Phil jumps out of bed, grabs the two pistols he keeps handy and shoots Farrell with both of them, before being overpowered, dragged off, convicted of his crimes and sent to prison. Which is where he is now.

True story.

Whack for my daddy-o.
(ScousersPet, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 12:05, 3 replies)

I witnessed a hit and run
Car came speeding round the corner, through red lights and smashed into a woman, throwing her into the air and just carried on down the road. I called 999, and so did lots of other people, and I heard later that she'd survived with, amazingly luckily, just a broken nose.

Then the police called up, asking for witnesses to appear at the trial (they caught up with the car, joy-driving drivers still inside, shortly afterwards). Six months later, I'm contacted and given a court date to appear as a witness.

The day before the court date, I get another phone call from the police, informing me that the hearing's been postponed. Why? Because nobody bothered to tell the accused when the hearing was.

That was about four years ago now. and I've heard nothing more about it. As far as I know, the "postponed" trial/hearing/whatever never happened.
( roystead, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:56, 1 reply)

I've seen a few but the other week
I sort of witnessed a murder in Sheffield.
www.thestar.co.uk/news/Two-women-arrested-over-4x4.3719543.jp
www.thestar.co.uk/video/Takeaway-chef-murder-39not-gangrelated39.3722111.jp

I ended up trying to give first aid to the bloke who died whilst he was trapped under the 4x4 and dying. At the time Sheffield United were playing Man City at Bramall Lane which is about a mile away from where the murder happened so it took ages for the emergency services to get there and he was pretty much dead by the time they got there.

Very messy all in all
(Where Im Not Wanted, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:54, Reply)

Pearl Harbour
I couldn't do anything about it, it'd already been filmed and i'd already paid for my cinema ticket & popcorn.
( FlexAlux laughed at something inappropriate on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:48, 1 reply)

Hi dad this is where i live!
My mate at uni was living with his gf in a less than pleasant part of Hull.

on the 400m long street they lived in at the time the police had shut down several crack dens* , and the local pub had been shut down three times in as meny months for licence violations.

Now my mates gf was bringing her parents up for the first time to show them around her flat. Pulling into the road, they had to stop and park the car some distance away. as the couldent get though as two gangs of polish thugs were having a full on street battle over a fridge dumped in the middle of the road.

No sooner had they managed to sneak past the fight then her dad was propostioned. twice. by two different prostitutes. in the 50m distance from the car to the flat.

Apprently he left for home feeling a little nevry about his daughters choice in accomodation.

But in all fairness the rent was very reasonable.




*they are now student accomodation
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:48, 1 reply)

Quick One
Not me but my little sister, she's a lot cleverer than me but quite naive.. or was.

So she's working in a northern rural garden centre/shed place. The bloke who owns it is trying to sell his van. Puts an advert up, gets a reply, sets a date for the bloke to come and see it.

Guy who owns the place nips out, dirty theiving gypo that wants to buy the van shows up. My sisters on her own.

She explains the man selling it has just nipped out. gypo puts a load of cash on the table, all 5 quid notes and asks if he can hear the engine, she agrees and leads him outside where he fires it up.

You've guessed it, once engine is running he floors it and heads for the hills.

Sisters a bit shocked at this, goes back inside, carries on counting the money, realises its about 1000 quid short.

Guy selling the van comes back, is told about driving off and lack of money, freaks out, tries to call gypo on phone.. surprise, no answer.

About 30 mins later gypo phones up, says van has broken down and wants his money back, ofcourse also argues that he has paid in full and my sister has clearly pocketed the missing money.

I don't know if you've had many dealings with gypo's but generally it involves a lot of backing down, no matter how hard you are, or how many coppers you call, your still going to get it)*

In short they paid up, 1000 quid down and a van returned missing some vital engine parts.

Apologies for length and repeated use of the word 'gypo', I have a small vocab and run out of insults far too quickly to try and vary them throughout.

*worked in a shop, boss caught two gypo's stealing, quite a tough guy, took them in back room, kicked the shit out of both of them, received death threats, actually had 2 bodyguards for over 2 years.
(Snuffy114 demands a cyber razor cut, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:42, Reply)

Can I just interject here...
... but does anyone else find it a bit discomforting reading a story of something awful happening to someone and then clicking 'I like this'.
( girlinthehole, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:42, 6 replies)

i once saw a crime
they guy committing it said that if i told the police he would tie me down and pour chilli on my cock and then tell my mum what time i usually masturbate so she could catch me in the act

and err.. last weeks question was crap
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:38, 1 reply)

When I was a student nurse, me and my then girlfriend, walked in on 3 senior staff nurses bashing a looney girl
they told us to fuck off and forget about it if we:
a. wanted to keep our jobs
b. wanted to qualify
c. wanted to stay alive because 2 of them were ex correctional services officers and they knew where we lived.

We did shut up about it but one was killed in a car crash a year later. Another was jailed for fraud.
The other one was my manager for about 2 years, until the day I saw him touching up a retarded girl. I beat the fuck out of him and put him in hospital for 2 weeks. He reported it as an attack by a patient so he could still claim worker's compensation. The cunt is now head of Ethics Committee for the government department we both work for.

I wish I'd had the balls to have reported him in the first place.
(wallynothere rnot without protection, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:32, 3 replies)

I woke up to the sound of rummaging coming from our garage
I was 15 at the time, brave, but not foolish, so I crept into my older brother's room with a baseball bat to tell him we were being burgled. Then we went to tell Dad, who is a policeman.

If a criminal works out he's in a copper's house, he doesn't just trash the joint; the place is marked for life, so we huddled down for a minute to discuss an action plan. My brother and I were to go out of the front door to block off the end of the driveway, and my Dad would go out the back door, close to the garage, and take the guy down.

We looked at eachother, nodded, my brother opened the front door, stark bollock naked, and we got into our positions.

The thief was nicking my brother's bike, and had just timed his depature to coincide with my brother leaping out of the house, bollocks to the wind, baseball bat in hand. I heard bellowed in a teenage voice "what the FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE..." and then a "THWOCK."

The thief had thrown the bike at my brother, who took it on the arm, rallied, and then smacked the guy in the ribs with the bat. He went down, my old man cuffed him, rozzers were called and my brother received 400 quid in compensation for the nasty bruise he took. When quizzed, the cheeky fucking pikey admitted to stealing MY bike the previous week as well. He gave his name as James Bond, resisted arrest, and got three months for a string of similar offences in the area.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:22, 2 replies)

Bad places to live
I once lived in Atknife Point. There was muggings and rapes there every day.

I'll get me coat.
(ScousersPet, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:19, Reply)

when i lived in tottenham
there used to be murders every week and i do mean every week between the nigerian and the turkish mobs.

there was always police tape, i phoned the ambulance for some guy who'd been shot, my flat mate was mugged and beaten up.

me? i somehow avoided death, despite usually wandering about pissed looking for a takeaway at all hours.
( monstrinho do biscoito teeeshurts = www.nogunarmy.com, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 11:07, 2 replies)

sad but true
i have a good friend from university called freddie. when he and his two sisters were younger, their parents invested in 3 flats on the 2nd floor of a nice development in the not-nice area of bow, east london.

fast forward 10 years to 2006 and the area has improved massively. freddie is in the army, so he lets his flat, but his older sister is living in hers as it's now quite a nice place to be. she is a painter, indeed many of you will have walked past her as she paints portraits in leicester square sometimes. cassie is a lovely girl, but she is quite impractical.

she was working at home one sunny morning when two guys came round to read the meters. she didn't think twice, just let them in. but walking back to the lounge and her painting whilst they fiddled around in the kitchen, she remembered her manners. she turned back to the kitchen to offer them a cup of tea - and heard them arguing over how to kill her once they had robbed her blind.

she said it was like something out of a bad dream. she couldn't help but give a tiny scream of fear, and they heard her. they crashed through the kitchen door as she ran back into the lounge and then out onto the tiny balcony. there was nowhere else to go. these two huge men were blocking the only door and one of them was coming at her with a rope very quickly indeed.

cassie didn't stop to think any further - she jumped clean off the balcony into the quad.

if she'd been on the first floor, she might have been ok. if she'd been on the third floor, she'd have been dead. the second floor jump has left her paralysed from the waist downwards and with severe short term memory loss. her husband was amazing at first, but he couldn't cope and he left her. all this at the age of only 28 because two men couldn't face getting a job and working for their own money.

sorry this is a bit depressing, but it's 100% true, and the truth often is depressing!

the other sister had happier but similarly dramatic story in the same block. i'll tell that one later...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 15 Feb 2008, 10:44, 10 replies)