I got this from Inspector Gadget's web site. It pretty much says it all as to why we will never beat the metal thief's..
Metal Theft ? the real story SHOCK!
October 28, 2011 by inspectorgadget
Last week, my team went round to Shaznay?s house. Shazza has never paid a single penny towards the house or any of its contents, the former being state-subsidised by our taxes and the latter having been nicked by on-off baby-father and all-round-waster Wayne.
Shaznay had received a death threat by text from an ?associate? of Wayne?s. Wayne cannot currently text death threats to Shaznay himself because he is banged up for one of his regular three-month sentences. It?s not that he doesn?t have access to a mobile phone in prison, of course he does, it?s because he needs all the credit he has on that phone for his drug deals.
As Wayne himself once so eloquently put to me as the doctor extracted a SIM card from his arse in custody It?s not like I?m gonna stop working just because I?m banged up Mr Gadget, I mean, a man has to make a living, like.
Wayne also receives a full set of state benefits.
One of the law and order news threads which amused me this week was the continual hand-wringing about metal theft. The stealing of copper cable is now so serious that the UK national infrastructure is under threat. Railway power cables, the electricity supply to hospitals and the ability to distribute power to other important areas of national provision like air traffic control are apparently under threat.
We in Ruralshire Constabulary have known about this for ages. We have specialist teams working on the problem. We have spent at least as much as the private vehicle fleet in our ACPO carpark on surveillance, intelligence, targeted patrolling and search operations. These have been largely successful until the very moment that the Courts become involved.
This is usually how it goes; guilty plea, defendant in a borrowed suit looking all contrite with a new haircut and an even newer story about disabled mothers, sick children and drug dependency. A community sentence, or such a small sentence that by the time ?time spent on remand? and all the various discounts are applied it?s no time at all. The defendant will be out within a few months and back to stealing metal again.
I can?t give the exact details for fear of exposure, but we had one recently on our Division where a thief with over 30 previous convictions copped a guilty plea with 12 Tic?s for metal theft and received 100 hours community service, with a concurrent drug testing requirement. His family was jubilant. Representatives from the victim corporation, British Telecom, were present in Court and came away bewildered. They had spent a small fortune on security and surveillance to help the police investigation teams on this case.
As the former Met BT security manager said to the OIC later, we might as well just give them the cable and save ourselves the bother and the money.
So why does Wayne, currently on a short break at HMP Ruralshire, want to kill Shazza? Detectives from Ruralshire CID visit Wayne inside and ask him. Oh, that, he says, I can?t fookin? remember like. He is relaxed and disinterested, having moved on to some other petty grievance, something about wanting to kill the prison governor because the showers are too cold. Fook me, is that all? he says to the ?tecs. I thought you was here to ask about the fag-breaks at Tesco Express. That had nowt to do with me. I swear on Shazza?s life like.
According to some genius at our Domestic Violence Unit, Wayne is now regarded as the next Raoul Moat. A fortune will now be spent on totally worthless security measures for Shaznay, who will promptly ignore all the warnings, shag anything which moves for the next two months and piss any extra benefit money she gets for Wayne being ?away? up the wall. What will you do if Wayne threatens you again? she is asked as part of the DV form I?ll punch his fecking face in she answers, the tosser, I hate him!
Oh, and just to show that romance is not dead on The Swamp Estate, Shazza is pregnant again. Wayne is not the father, He doesn?t know yet.
That?ll next months death threats taken care of then.
Meanwhile, in a law-abiding household somewhere in Ruralshire, a decent member of the public with a real problem waits while the phones in the Control room ring, and ring and ring. Everyone who is left (after the cuts) is busy dealing with a thousand Shazzas.
Gadget Note: Just in case this story gives you the impression that Wayne is an errant rogue, lovable and slightly eccentric, in a ?nicking handkerchiefs from the waistcoat pocket? kind of way, please bear in mind that at age 15 years, he glassed a WPC in London, leaving her fighting for her life on the pavement while he legged it. He also put ground glass in a cup of tea which he gave to a Social Worker. He blamed Shazza, who escaped prison by being pregnant at the time.
