Welcome on the mat for burglars?

THE FRIDAY THING: Life, and other bits...

IF some villainous yob, or gang of villainous yobs, breaks into your house intent on nicking your telly, car keys (and car), PC, family jewels and the kids, what is the appropriate response?

Do you make them a brew, offer a light supper, a glass of scotch, show them pictures of the kids and discuss Dave Penney’s future at Latics?

Or do you find something heavy and batter them with it?

The law says that if you don’t behave reasonably (offer a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive) you can go to jail for damaging your burglar’s human rights as well as his skull.

In a rare flash of common-sense the deliciously named Lord Chief Justice, Judge Judge, freed Munir Hussain who had been jailed for two years for attacking a burglar, violent career criminal Walid Salem, with a cricket bat after he had broken into his home and threatened his family.

But Mr Hussain, whose previous brushes with the law involved no more than a parking ticket, retains his criminal record because Judge Judge (shades of “Catch 22”) says: “This is not, and should not, be seen as the level of violence which may lawfully be used on a burglar.”

So remember, the next time herself nudges you in the ribs to say there’s someone moving about downstairs (why she can’t go if she’s awake, I don’t know) and you retrieve your trusty putter from its winter berth in the wardrobe, just ask yourself should you really be contemplating hitting the poor, unemployed, disengaged and excluded wretch with the putter?

Of course you shouldn’t — a sledgehammer is far more effective.




SO who advised Oldham Council to take crafty-as-a-cartload-of-monkeys Vance to court? Mark Alcock seems to have his finger in a lot of pies (those he hasn’t eaten, of course) and is never reluctant to have his picture taken, could it be him?

Trading standards, along with everything else that goes wrong — road and pavement clearing, emptying the bins and recycling — are overseen or underseen by Mark, so it could have his chubby fingerprints all over it?

Or could it have been our great leader, deciding that the good name of Oldham had been so sullied by the spread of Maple Mill kitchens that only prison or deportation to the colonies was appropriate?

Or it could have been Daphne in typing who thought she was ordering a new breakfast bar when she ticked the box on the go-to-court form.


FINAL WORD: It is no surprise that some children think that oats grow on trees, many of them think that’s where money comes from, too.