Straight up, guv! Would I lie to you?

There are 100 posts tagged: "crime & punishment"

Richard the Third: 14 June 2022; There's been a lot of commentary following the outcome of the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation trial. One of the highlights of the case, which has been the source of much hilarity and derision, was the revelation—although I'm pretty sure that it was publicly known years ago—of Heard taking a dump in the marital bed, and later trying to pass the blame onto one of the couple's lapdogs. She now lives in infamy as Amber Turd.
(more…)
The unknown incel: 14 June 2022; An incel who murdered ten people in Toronto in 2018, by driving a van into pedestrians, has been sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years. He was found guilty of the crimes last year.
(more…)
Say cheese: 28 May 2022; In Six unbelievable uses for cheese, BBC Food provides some imaginative, if not flat-out off-the-wall, uses for my favourite dairy product: as car fuel; sporting equipment; sculpture; collateral; a politcal statement; and…crime prevention. Although, in reality, that last one's a bit of a stretch.
(more…)
Chicken, egg: egg, chicken: 28 May 2022; Dennis Butler was warned to slow down while passing a celebratory event in Charleston, WV, because children were playing there. When the convicted felon returned to fire on the crowd with a semi-automatic rifle, a bystander drew her own gun and popped a cap in his ass, killing him and saving innocent lives. Bloody good show, lady!
(more…)
Crazy guy, gun crazy: 25 May 2022; Only ten days after an 18-year-old man shot dead ten people in a racially-motivated attack in Buffalo, NY, another has killed 21, including 19 children aged nine to eleven, at a school in Uvalde, TX. This second assailant launched his courageous attack on unarmed civilians with a handgun, a semi-automatic rifle, and high-capacity magazines.
(more…)
This time we mean it (crossedfingers): 10 May 2022; After prison guard Vicky White absconded from an Alabaman jail with convicted felon Casey White, a manhunt was set up to capture the runaway duo. It ended less than two weeks' later, with her death and his surrender to police.
(more…)
Saddened and shocked of Sidmouth: 14 April 2022; As news that a lone gunman has been arrested for a mass-shooting on the New York subway, Sidmouth in Devon has also entered the world of senseless violence. The town was reeling from the stabbing of a man on Monday, although the town council's chairman tried to put a brave face on it.
(more…)
Where there's a Will, there's no way: 8 April 2022; Following his physical and verbal outburst at Oscars 2022, Will Smith resigned from the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Academy has now imposed a ten-year ban on his attendance at future ceremonies.
(more…)
Due recognition: 7 April 2022; Dr Todd Grande is a mental health counsellor. He has a YouTube channel on which he dissects the state-of-mind of people involved in noteworthy events. In one episode, he describes Dennis Nilsen as Britain's Jeffrey Dahmer. But that's completely arse about face.
(more…)
Foetal attraction: 1 April 2022; Lauren Handy is an American anti-abortionist, who describes herself as a Catholic anarchist. She's a leader of an activist group calling itself the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.
(more…)
No noose is good news: 31 March 2022; US President 'Pa has signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, thus making an act that hasn't occurred in decades a federal hate crime, punishable by up to 30 years' imprisonment. For what is also murder, punishable by up to life imprisonment or death. Think about it.
(more…)
Shitcanned: 24 March 2022; New York socialite, Lauren Pazienza, is charged with manslaughter after an elderly woman, whom she shoved to the ground, suffered head trauma and later died. She's currently jailed on Rikers Island.
(more…)
A bum rap: 17 March 2022; Less than one week into his sentence for lying to police, Jussie Smollett is released on bail, pending an appeal. His legal team, playing the inevitable race card, is happy with the result.
(more…)
Justice for Jussie‽: 11 March 2022; Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to less than six months in jail, of a maximum possible three years on each of five counts, for fabricating a race hate crime. But not everyone believes that Illinois' inmates should have to be more careful with the soap.(jussie)
(more…)
The popcorn bandit: 2 March 2022; Two separate couples visited a suburban cinema in Tampa, FL, on 13 January 2014. As the feature started, one of the husbands ignored the request to turn off mobile devices. The other admonished him. Insults were traded; popcorn was thrown; shots were fired.
(more…)
Is there a barber in the house?: 13 February 2022; A US father and son, Brandon and Gregory Case, chased and shot at a black FedEx driver in Brookhaven, MS. The younger Case has been charged with aggravated assault, and his father with conspiracy. The driver, D'Monterrio Gibson, believes that they should be charged with hate crime.
(more…)
Double-down juries: 11 February 2022; Rebecca Hogue's plight rests on Oklahoma's failure to protect law, which states that a parent who suspects child abuse by another, and fails to report it, is complicit. In the worst case, this can lead to a charge of murder in the first-degree.
(more…)
Arresting development: 2 February 2022; Mason Greenwood—who I'd never heard of before now, but he's a footballer, so why would I?—was arrested on Sunday. While he was already in police custody, additional charges were brought against him. At least, that's how I understood the situation.
(more…)
Visionary video: 24 January 2022; I had to read this twice to realise they meant video. Automated journalism-to-English translators aren't infallible I guess.
(more…)
Trailer trial: 23 January 2022; Two fans of Ana de Armas are suing Universal Pictures. They contend that they were duped into renting the film Yesterday, believing that she would feature in it. But, although she appeared in the trailer, her role was removed from the film's final release.
(more…)
Da-do-Ron-Ron: 13 January 2022; Reading of the death of Ronnie Spector, I was expecting her ex-husband's criminal conviction to be dragged up. Not that it needed to be included in her obituary; after all, it had nothing to do with her. The couple had divorced three decades prior to Lana Clarkson's murder.
(more…)
Girl boss?: 13 December 2021; My daughters went to see House of Gucci today.
(more…)
Just rephrase the question: 10 December 2021; Jussie Smollett has been found guilty of lying to police, when he claimed to be the victim of a racist and homophobic assault in Chicago, almost three years ago.
(more…)
Daddy's little princess, a chip off the old block: 6 December 2021; Ghislaine Maxwell, darling daughter of the late publishing tycoon, Robert, is on trial for sex trafficking underage girls to Jeffrey Epstein. Daddy would be so proud.
(more…)
Fleecing the flock: 2 December 2021; In When Jesus is used to steal from his flock, Bernd Debusmann Jr discusses elder fraud, the scamming of trusting, elderly Christians by snake oil salesmen. It's a variant on affinity fraud, in which individuals are targeted, based on religious, ethnic, or professional associations.
(more…)
The wheelchair heist: 1 December 2021; A 61-year-old shoplifter was shot dead by a police officer in Tuscon on Monday. Like his weapon, Officer Ryan Remington has been fired. BA-BOOM-TSCH!
(more…)
Me, myself, I: 30 November 2021; During his pre-trial hearing for participating in the US Capitol riot on 6 January, James Beeks claimed that the court had no jurisdiction over him because he had divine authority. I'm not sure whether he's claiming to be directly related to god, or just a messenger. Perhaps his stage role as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar has gone to his head; although, from my limited knowledge of the Bible, playing Judas doesn't sound particularly divine.
(more…)
Let's go...: 20 November 2021; I've paid little attention to the Kyle Rittenhouse case. It's too mired in US politics, race relations, and gun law to be of even passing interest. Besides, polarising doesn't exacty float my boat.
(more…)
No mobile while mobile: 19 November 2021; Things are getting tougher for the UK's drivers.
(more…)
Privacy is very important to F*c*book: 19 November 2021; F*c*book has admonished the LAPD for breaching its T&C, by establishing fake profiles to surveil users suspected of criminal activity.
(more…)
X, the unknown: 18 November 2021; Two men convicted of Malcolm X's assassination in 1965 will have their convictions quashed.
(more…)
Flowers power: 17 November 2021; Following the arrest of Terence Kelly for the abduction of Cleo Smith, the Australian news network, Seven, published photos of Terrance Flowers as the suspect. They took the photos from his Facebook account, where he uses his mother's maiden name, which is also Kelly.
(more…)
Butt, officers...: 10 November 2021; After Darrell Meekcom mooned a speed camera in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, he was surprised to be arrested, and wrestled to the ground, by no less than six police officers. Meekom suffers from a plethora of disabling diseases, and uses a wheelchair. Most people would think that a single officer, or two since they like to go about in pairs, could've done the job well enough.
(more…)
Spy way: 20 October 2021; An investigation as to why a middle-class, suburban US couple turned to spying against their country, revealed that Mrs Diana Toebbe has purple hair. Not that this was the cause of their spying, I hasten to add.
(more…)
Acid tongue: 14 October 2021; Claudia Webbe, ex-Labour and currently independent MP for Leicester East, has been found guilty of harassing Michelle Merritt, between September 2018 and April 2020, with, among other things, threats of acid and sending naked photos of Merritt to her family. The basis for these attacks was a relationship that Merritt allegedly had with Webbe's partner, Lester Thomas.
(more…)
Revealing: 1 October 2021; According to the BBC's homepage headline, DNA evidence has revealed a French ex-police officer to be a rapist and murderer. Except, according to the actual article:
(more…)
The running woman: 30 September 2021; Not all Nazi war criminals give up easily. Instead of attending her trial for complicity in 11,000 murders, 96-year-old Irmgard Furchner did a runner from her nursing home.
(more…)
The type of R. Kelly (part 2)*: 28 September 2021; The jury's returned, and R. Kelly's goin' down!
(more…)
Let the punishment fit the crime: 24 September 2021; The Taliban have announced that extreme punishments, including execution and amputation, will resume in Afghanistan. Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who has an infamously zealous history in the pursuit of justice, claimed that amputations were necessary for security.
(more…)
Who pays the ferryman?: 29 August 2021; Ancient Greeks placed a silver coin in the mouths of the dead as payment to the ferryman, Charon, for carrying their soul across the Styx to the underworld.
(more…)
The type of R. Kelly*: 22 August 2021; Something about the reporting of R. Kelly's trial for racketeering, sexual abuse and bribery struck me as strange.
(more…)
Too close to call?: 12 August 2021; Flordelis dos Santos de Souza has been expelled from Brazil's lower house of Congress, for allegedly plotting her husband's murder in 2019.
(more…)
Time is running out: 3 August 2021; And it's a race to the finish line!
(more…)
Criminal mastermindless: 5 June 2021; Okay, say you're drug dealers, and you have cocaine with a street value of £500,000 in your car. Would you drive down the hard shoulder of a motorway, even if there was heavy traffic on the road? I mean, what if you were to undertake a police patrol car? They might give chase in an attempt to pull you over. You'd have to be pretty stupid, right?
(more…)
You can die, but you can't hide: 2 June 2021; Writing for BBC Culture about the Tea Chest Tapes, a collection of lost music tapes belonging to the late British producer Joe Meek, Arwa Haider reflects on Meek's life and work.
(more…)
The colour of law: 26 May 2021; Police in Illinois confiscated an urn containing the ashes of two-year-old Ta'Naja Barnes—or Davis, I'm not sure which—after pulling her father over for traffic offences. They claimed that the urn tested postive in a field test for meth.
(more…)
The truth about lying: 7 April 2021; Writing for BBC Future, via Knowable Magazine, Jessica Seigel asks Can you tell when someone is lying? And, if I were to reply that I could, would you know whether or not I was lying?
(more…)
Streetwalker me: 25 March 2021; Following the disappearance of Sarah Everard, Dr Hannah Bows, an Associate Professor in Criminal Law at Durham University, opines as to why women shouldn’t have to risk trading their freedom for safety. According to her: Women need men to change their behaviour. Say what?
(more…)
Curfew quarrel: 25 March 2021; Following the abduction of Sarah Everard in south London, police officers working on the case in the area advised women not to go out alone and to be careful; which doesn't seem too unreasonable, since the perpetrator was still at large at the time. But Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb's response in the House of Lords upset a number of people, and was widely ridiculed:
(more…)
Return to normal: 23 March 2021; As a mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado supermarket leaves ten people dead, it would be the mark of a true cynic to see any light in this tragedy.
(more…)
Inside out: 12 February 2021; Once again, I feel mean for nitpicking on BBC journalism. But when, on the same day, you claim to be the world's most trusted international news broadcaster, you've gotta get shit right.
(more…)
One bad deed: 18 January 2021; He was one of the most influential pop songwriters and producers of his, or any, generation; he invented the wall of sound; and he worked with some of the most iconic artists in pop music history. He was also convicted of second degree murder.
(more…)
Complete the following sentence: 16 September 2020; Changes to the criminal justice system in England and Wales are heralded by the BBC with the above headline. Which immediately begs the question, what jail term do flippant criminals have to serve?
(more…)
Party poopers: 23 August 2020; As Birmingham is added to the UK government's yo-yo watch list, due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, police have disrupted more than seventy unlicensed social gatherings in one night.
(more…)
Pas de chokehold, pas de mort: 16 July 2020; Whereas, in the US the public protests when police are accused of racially-motivated excessive use of force, in France it's the police who take to the streets.
(more…)
Missing the point?: 16 July 2020; The sending of a black teenager to juvenile detention for not doing her online schoolwork has led to the inevitable protests and calls for her release in Detroit, Michigan. One mother, Sheri Crawley, told local TV news I know if Grace was a 15-year-old white girl she would not be sitting in juvenile detention right now.
(more…)
Closing the gender gap: 16 July 2020; Another day, another hashtag movement. And this one concerns US police brutality. Just for a change.
(more…)
Miserable pleaders: 13 May 2019; Felicity Huffman has pleaded guilty to having her daughter's college entrance exam results falsified.
(more…)
Buddy, can you spare a dime?: 27 March 2019; As if Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman's problems over the money-for-university-entrance scandal weren't enough, ~~some money-grabbing pond life~~ a concerned mother is suing them for her son not being accepted to university.
(more…)
WASP: wealthy, Anglo-Saxon, pinhead: 13 March 2019; As the money-for-university-places scandal gathers momentum, an affidavit filed by an FBI Special Agent states:
(more…)
If you can't make it, fake it: 12 March 2019; In the good old days, all you needed to go to university in the USofA was to be intelligent or good at sports. I never understood why they'd give places to students just because they were academically-inclined at the potential expense of a football jock, but there you go. (rolleyes)
(more…)
Leaving Neverland: 10 March 2019; In the wake of Leaving Neverland, a documentary describing, in depth, Michael Jackson's alleged paedophilia, the BBC's Cherry Wilson asks whether the late performer's legacy is now ruined. Personally, I think that happened while he was still alive. Off The Wall and Thriller are undisputedly classics that defined an era. Bad wasn't so much bad as meh!, and it was the last of his work that I bought. Everything after that was a downward spiral.
(more…)
The unruly minority: 11 September 2018; Unauthorised gypsy and traveller camps are a disruptive, and expensive, societal problem in the UK. And the government is being urged to make deliberate trespass a criminal offence.
(more…)
No shit, Byomkesh: 2 July 2018; According to BBC News, eleven members of an Indian family were found dead in a house in Delhi. Ten of them were hanging from the ceiling and most were blindfolded, gagged, and with their hands tied behind their backs. Apparently, police have not ruled out murder.
(more…)
Same old, same old: 15 February 2018; Another day, another mass murder at a US school, when a 19-year-old armed with an assault rifle killed at least seventeen people at a high school in Parkland, Florida. School shootings in the US have become so common-place that they hardly make anything other than local news. But Florida's Senator, Marco Rubio, stated that it was too soon to jump to conclusions that there was some law that we could have passed that would have prevented it, while the state's Governor, Rick Scott, also refused to discuss gun control.
(more…)
The person who I feel most sorry for: 9 October 2017; Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is accused of multiple sexual assaults. It's a bit of a mess, really, isn't it?
(more…)
May god go with you...but take back-up just in case: 11 July 2017; William Rian Adams, a North Carolinian priest, pulled a gun on two people in a road rage incident.
(more…)
Policemen talking bollocks: 30 May 2017; It's a strange thing, but when policemen talk to the press they use a special bollocks language.
(more…)
Limited parking available: 18 May 2015; Rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas, got into an argument over parking spaces outside a restaurant. Of all things.
(more…)
Lifespan: 23 August 2013; Police in Belgium have recovered drugs and chemicals worth an estimated €1.3 billion in a raid on an illicit drugs factory. Eleven suspects, all aged 30 to 50, have been arrested
(more…)
Placebo it is not: 25 June 2013; Convicted child murderer, Ian Brady, is appealing against the diagnosis that he is mentally ill, which might in itself be proof of his mental illness. He wants to be moved from Ashworth high-security psychiatric hospital where, according to him: They give you false drugs and turn you into a zombie.
(more…)
Catch me if you can: 18 June 2013; Suspected war criminal Laszlo Csatary, a Nazi policeman in 1944, has been charged by Hungarian prosecutors with torture and murder of Jewish prisoners. His trial is expected to start in three months.
(more…)
Keep death off the roads: drive on the pavement!: 8 November 2012; A driver in Cleveland, Ohio, who was caught avoiding a school bus by driving on the pavement, was handed down an unusual punishment by the judge. In addition to losing her licence for 30 days and paying a $250 fine, Shena Hardin will have to hold up a sign which states only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.
(more…)
Benny joins the justice league: 29 October 2012; In the wake of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Jimmy Savile and some of his entourage—or one of his entourages as it happens—the Catholic Church in England and Wales has written to the Holy See to ask whether the papal knighthood bestowed on Savile in 1990 can be revoked. But it appears that this might not be possible.
(more…)
Jimmy Savile: nasty man: 26 October 2012; Hmmm, curiouser and curiouser…in an earlier report from 5th October, the beauty contest winner who alleged that she was raped by Jimmy Savile apparently tells a different story of her encounter to The Daily Mail:
(more…)
PS3 hacked. Again.: 25 October 2012; Sony's PS3 has been hacked/cracked. Again. Is anyone keeping track?
(more…)
Jimmy Savile: nasty man with nasty friends...allegedly: 24 October 2012; Following revelations that the erstwhile Saint James was a predatory sex offender, a woman has come forward claiming that he raped her:
(more…)
Now then, now then! Jimmy Savile done pervin', allegedly*: 9 October 2012; It appears that the late Saint Jimmy Savile had a predilection for ladies of a certain age. And in his case, the age may have been lower than that of consent.
(more…)
Mancunians are very naughty people: 17 September 2012; It appears that Manchester is the UK capital of illegal downloading. And the UK as a whole is second in the world after the United States of Amerika.
(more…)
Pas de merde, Sherlock: 6 September 2012; Yet another instalment in my exploration of the crime fighter's rapier mind; this time from France.
(more…)
No shit, Sherlock: We got braynz: 29 August 2012; According to the BBC, after his assassination Leon Trotsky's brain proved unusually heavy.
(more…)
No shit, Sherlock: Sherlock returns: 17 August 2012; From the gruesome files, a woman's head has been found in a park in Mississauga, Ontario. The previous day, a severed human foot, with painted toenails, was also found. It's not yet confirmed that they belonged to the same body, but that appears to be the working hypothesis.
(more…)
Do as we say, not as we do!: 12 March 2012; There is a programme on Henan Legal Channel—one of the Chinese state-run TV channels—entitled Interviews Before Execution, in which Ding Yu interviews prisoners before they're executed. Contrary to being exploitative, the programme makers claim to find cases that will serve as a warning to others. Indeed, the programme calls for human nature to awaken and perceive the value of life.
(more…)
Olympus!, Olympus!, Olympus!: 7 March 2012; I have a warm feeling. And it's not because I've pissed myself. Honest.
(more…)
Oh no! Poor Joe! He's got no morals: 14 November 2011; One of the joys of international business travel is the opportunity to be in proximity to people who're sick. In this case, I contracted viral bronchitis on a flight to Washington, and thus I came to spend an evening at George Washington University Hospital's A&E.
(more…)
SPAM: new serving suggestion: 11 November 2011; That nice Mr/Mrs Chumbla in Nigeria has offered me, and I suspect all of you, their money for FREE.
(more…)
Send me to jail, please*: 8 November 2011; It appears that doing hard time in jail means something different in Mexico. A recent inspection of a jail in Acapulco revealed the presence of prostitutes, plasma TVs, marijuana, and fighting cocks, as well as female inmates living in the male section.
(more…)
Essex girls in club fight shocka!: 24 October 2011; I understand that in the UK you have a televisual entertainment entiled The Only Way Is Essex. I'm not sure that I want to know any more about this than I do already…chav TV, say no more!
(more…)
You can take the actor out of TV: 8 July 2011; …but you can't take TV out of the actor.
(more…)
Un-fit: 21 September 2010; And all of that leafy nonsense led me to this four-year-old story.
(more…)
The salad days of a petty thief: 21 September 2010; Hampshire Police have released an e-fit of a casual thief wearing what appears to be a lettuce on his head. If caught, he's to be given a dressing down.
(more…)
George Michael: 'im goin' down: 15 September 2010; George Michael has been sentenced to eight weeks for driving under the influence of cannabis. Or, rather, crashing his car under the influence of cannabis.
(more…)
May I have my job back? Pretty please?: 23 August 2010; A former senior Filipino police inspector, Rolando Mendoza, has allegedly taken a bus full of hostages in Manila, in an attempt to regain the job that he lost in 2008 following allegations of robbery, extortion, and drug-related crimes.
(more…)
Of superheroes and Sigmund: 16 August 2010; While philosophers love superheroes, psychologists do not. They're concerned that modern superheroes are an inappropriate role model for boys.
(more…)
Of superheroes and Socrates: 12 August 2010; It may seem like a simple comic strip to most of us—the proportion with a life—but the tribulations of your everyday, common-or-garden superhero are a philosophical minefield. Even if you don't think of it that way.
(more…)
Ungrateful little arsewipe!: 4 June 2010; Following the shootings in Cumbria, the United Kindom's very own, finely-coiffured Prime Minister has visited the area to ~~get his face in the news and pretend he cares~~ show solidarity with the local populace. But some tosser has the temerity to complain to the BBC's reporter: One man told me he was angry that it has taken a shooting for the prime minister to visit the town.
(more…)
The irony is almost touching!: 6 May 2010; A KKK leader has shot dead a recruit named Lynch.
(more…)
File under 'Rocks, dumb as': 23 March 2010; A US couple boasted on TV about how much money they made by selling stolen goods. The evidence was used against them in a court of law and now they're doing time in ol' pokey.
(more…)
No shit Sherlock: 25 September 2009; Police investigating a woman's body found in a suitcase in a dried-up pond on Kent farmland are treating the death as suspicious. Because natural deaths so often end up with bodies in suitcases? (confused)
(more…)
Sicko: 24 August 2009; After former model Jasmine Fiore was murdered by her husband, he mutilated her to prevent recognition. Her body was later found in a suitcase near Los Angeles. It's tragic, really, so I feel bad for finding this funny.
(more…)