UK Student arrested ... for being honest

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Latest news from the Peoples Democratic Republic of Great Britain

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/vie ... ing-honest

STUDENT ARRESTED...FOR BEING HONEST

Thursday April 2,2009
By Chris Riches

AN HONEST student who handed in a mobile phone he found was stunned when police arrested him for theft.

Paul Leicester, 18, played the Good Samaritan when he discovered the handset lying in the street.

He rang the last number dialled and told a friend of the owner he would leave the phone at a nearby police station. But officers arrested him for “theft by finding”, held him for four hours and took a DNA sample.

Yesterday Paul said: “I thought I was doing the right thing and had it thrown back in my face. I wouldn’t go to the police in future. All I was doing was the honest thing. It was a shocking experience.”

The A-level student at Southport College, Merseyside, had been out celebrating his 18th birthday last month when he found the phone.

Paul added: “Being arrested isn’t a good way to celebrate your birthday. What are you supposed to do when you find a phone?”

Merseyside Police dropped the case but Paul’s father Vinnie, 37, of Seaforth, Merseyside, is still angry over his arrest.

WTF? Those damn pigs REALLY have nothing better to do, do they?

I really have to wonder if the this is part of the UK's plan to get DNA samples from as many people as possible. Charge them for crimes, get the DNA, then drop the case but you still have the DNA sample.

I sugest that the UK police should now have to destory the DNA records of any person wrongly accused of a crime, also the UK maybe needs to change its law to make such evidence which was aquired wrongly useless in court.

What worries me is that some horrible errors have occured in DNA labs, the most shocking is of the German female serial offender who was unmasked as a worker in a factory making cotton swabs. Her "crime" was to have accidently contaminated some swabs while working at the factory.

_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

Some days I weep for what was once the marvelous common law. We can look back to our recent ancestors and say to them: "You have delivered up your descendants to demons."

not directly related, but a good video nonetheless.

A (US) law professor explains why you should NEVER talk to the police under any circumstances, citing examples of innocent bystanders etc who got jailed for 'helping' the police.

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... +It!&hl=en

I suspect this has to do with performance targets. The more 'crimes' the police solve, the higher their score, and the larger their budget in the future. This sounds like a creative way of improving their figures.

The same system is used to run everything in Britain, schools, hospitals, everything. It stinks.

Theft by finding? What in the heck?

What message does such vindictive policing send to the public?

The British police never cease to amaze me for their incompetence and sheer nastiness. Having spent most of my life in England I have seen the standard of policing plummet. It has got to the stage that I would be unlikely to report any crime I was witness to simply to avoid having to deal with the police.

if i find a phone i am just going to keep it from now on.

Wow, what a good way to make more people be dishonest

While I tend to have a lot of respect for police officers who do a very difficult job, this case is ridiculous. Truth is, police officers are human and are not immune from acting utterly stupidly. They owe this boy more than an apology. People are allowed mistakes, but they should make up for them.

I turned in a watch once I found lying on the ground. They asked me if I wanted to keep it if it wasn't claimed in six months or whatever and I said no. It's not as if it was a suitcase full of money.

The thought of being arrested for turning in something of value is beyond bizarre. Although if you could figure out who the owner is, wouldn't it be easier just to return it to them? I've done that twice with bus passes I've found. Also, I could see if it was something that was supposed to be left there. But not a mobile phone on the ground.