Tuesday - September 12, 2006

Sinking Britannia, Episode #42

I am an American currently residing in England and have seen enough madness and lunacy here to rival anything you see back home. Please let me know if in the past year you’ve read anything dumber. Wait, there was the govt. decree that national parks were being used by too many white, middle aged, middle class people and they were gonna shut parts down. That was pretty dumb. But this could be dumber. See what you think ....

Mother Fined For Swearing At Gang Of Trouble-makers
_{YORKSHIRE (TELEGRAPH-UK) - September 10, 2006}

A mother of two has been fined for swearing at yobs who terrorised her neighbourhood. Donna Appleyard, 32, finally snapped after months of misery in which the youths jumped over fences, trampled through gardens and shouted and swore at residents.

Ms Appleyard said she had made several complaints to police about the gang outside her home in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, but no officers had been to visit her to take the issue further.

Instead, she found herself under investigation when officers received a complaint from a 13-year-old girl, after Ms Appleyard finally lost her temper and pleaded with her tormenters: “Please, just f*** off”. Two weeks later, officers called at her house and issued her with the fine.

Ms Appleyard said: “I was at the end of my tether and I admit I swore at one of them. But that’s nothing compared to what my neighbours and I have suffered. “When the police came I thought it was because I had complained. I never dreamed they had come to arrest me. I’m really angry that we’ve had to put up with this behaviour for almost a year, and then you can be taken to court and fined for shouting back at them.”

Ms Appleyard was given an £80 fixed penalty notice following the incident on March 30. However, she refused to pay and was taken to court last month, when magistrates raised the sum to £120, which she must now pay or face a jail term. Ms Appleyard said: “I had called police and spoken to our beat officer about six times. Not once had they been round to see me.”

Her neighbours have been so enraged by the treatment meted out to Ms Appleyard that they have offered to pay half the fine. Shirley Wardle, 69, said: “It is deplorable. The kids’ behaviour is enough to make you commit murder, not just swear at them.” Sergeant Neil Haley, from West Yorkshire police, defended the force’s actions. He said: “We appreciate that anti-social behaviour can be frustrating for people but they should not take the law into their own hands.”

The case is the latest in which a householder has ended up in court after finally losing patience with yobs. James Leahy, 54, a civil servant from Rutherglen, Glasgow, whose flowerbeds were regularly trampled by school pupils using his garden as a shortcut, was fined £500 for assault this month after he grabbed two teenage girls by the hair and threatened to take them to a police station.

Linda Walker, 48, of Urmston, Greater Manchester, last year served five weeks in jail and lost her job as a special needs teacher after she fired an airgun at the feet of a vandal who had plagued her home for months.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/12/2006 at 07:16 AM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons •  
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