How The Hell Did This Slip Past My Desk?

From the January 25th edition of the Times Online:

How police used £10,000 to stalk route of an apple-eating driver - Britain - Times Online

"A nursery nurse was fined £60 yesterday for holding an apple in her hand while driving around a bend after police used a spotter aircraft [!], a helicopter [!!] and a patrol car [!!!] to win the case.

Northumbria Police went to extraordinary lengths to gather evidence against Sarah McCaffery, 23, who had missed breakfast and grabbed the apple to eat on her way to work. Magistrates ruled that she had not been in full control of her car. Miss McCaffery was also ordered to pay £100 costs at the tenth court hearing of the case."

There are times when I am left completely and utterly speechless by the "extraordinary lengths" governments will go to to bully their subjects into boneheaded compliance with some legislative edict or another.

"Geoffrey Forrester, for the defence, told South Tyneside magistrates that Miss McCaffery had been driving in dry conditions, that there was no traffic or pedestrians and that the manoeuvre was carried out perfectly."

As would be clearly demonstrated by the assload of evidence hoovered up by the helicopters and airplanes and patrol cars and nannybot cameras and whatnot. Silly Geoffrey: you're attempting an appeal to people's ability to make situation-specific reasonable judgements. The Law Is The Law.

"The court was told how police brought in a fixed-wing spotter aircraft to fly over Miss McCaffery’s route to work and take photographs. Later the force’s helicopter repeated the exercise before a patrol car made a video of the journey"

"Extraordinary efforts" indeed. Imagine if they put a fraction of that effort into, y'know protecting people's lives and property from aggression. This is Britain of course, where the criminals take you on their terms and you fight back on the State's terms. All the while the fucking punk cops are flying around in goddamn airplanes making sure nobody's eating an apple while driving.

Ken Buck, the chairman of the bench, concluded: “We accept that there are times when you can drive with one hand but, in holding an apple while negotiating a left-hand turn, we consider you not to have been in full control. We are therefore satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that this case is proved.”

And the citizens of Northumbria rest peacefully.
# 9:32 AM