Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

Some more lunacy from PC Britain, you read these stories and aside from them being true the saddest point is the utter waste of police time and effort in bringing these cases through the legal system in the first place.

First off:Five thousand pound court case over 1p damage...

A schoolboy who caused one penny's worth of criminal damage to a plastic bag was dragged through the courts at a cost of £5,000.

• The 16-year-old, who cannot be named, yesterday pleaded guilty to snatching a carrier bag from a 13-year-old girl and breaking its handles.
• Magistrates ordered him to complete six hours' community work after hearing that the incident left the younger pupil too scared to walk to school.

But wait it gets better after dealing with such major crime as carrier bag assault, we see that in the next case that police are catching the criminal element at an early age, and for such serious crimes as being armed in a built up area with a crayon.

Girl fingerprinted for using a crayon on a wall

• GIRL Guide Shannon Smith, 10, was fingerprinted by the police and fined £40 after marking a neighbour’s wall with crayon. The tearful little girl was also threatened with an Asbo.
• 
  
• Last night the fine was withdrawn but Shannon’s mother Helen said: “It is obvious the police didn’t have anything better to do at that time of day – like chasing proper criminals.”
  

Nice to see that they teach them how to be tough on serious criminals at Hendon. But it gets better, next up the fine boys and gals in blue catch themselves so famous tree climbing criminals.

12 year olds hauled in for damaging a tree

• To the 12-year-old friends planning to build themselves a den, the cherry tree seemed an inviting source of material.
• But the afternoon adventure turned into a frightening ordeal for Sam Cannon, Amy Higgins and Katy Smith after they climbed into the 20ft tree - then found themselves hauled into a police station and locked in cells for up to two hours.
• Their shoes were removed and mugshots, DNA samples and mouth swabs were taken.
• Officers told the children they had been seen damaging the tree which is in a wooded area of public land near their homes.
• Questioned by police, the scared friends admitted they had broken some loose branches because they had wanted to build a tree house, but said they did not realise what they had done was wrong.

But not all these are so petty, indeed the rise of the hopscotch criminal is also being tackled in New Labours Cool Britannia.

Police haul in hopscotch criminal

When Lisa Badland gave her five-year-old son Ryan some coloured chalks to mark out a hopscotch court outside her home, she expected him to have an afternoon of innocent fun.

Little did she imagine that he would end up in trouble with the police.

Yet that is what happened when two policemen, acting on a tip-off from a neighbour, arrived in a quiet cul-de-sac, lined up Ryan and five young friends and told them off for drawing "graffiti".

Remarkably, when the children's parents emerged from their homes to find out what was going on, the constables instructed them not to let their children play in the street or draw on the road or pavement. One mother said that she was also advised that one child was not dressed warmly enough.

Then we have the case of being "tooled up" with an elastic band.
Elastic band criminal hauled in

Then a ten year old charged with being "tooled up" with some fruit, oh and this was after he was attacked by a Slovakian with an iron bar.
10 year old may be charged over assault with fruit.

Mind at least when arresting these serious criminals the police are not standing about watching children die.

**It used to be that when we joked about the lunatics taking over the asylum, we were normally referring to the politicians, judges, members of the chattering classes, Guardian readers and other members of the out of touch elite. Sadly it seems that the wave of madness has reached the levels of the humble police constable.

Tags: Nanny State, Big Brother, Cool Britannia, Political Correctness

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