Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
 

HOLY SHIT
A smoker is trying to claim £5.5 million compensation after a portable toilet exploded when he sat down and lit a cigarette. He claims that his face, neck, arms, torso and legs were severely burned after his cigarette ignited methane gas leaking from a pipe.

THE BLEEDIN' OBVIOUS
The Competition Commission has announced its findings into an investigation into store card charges and come up with what everyone else has known for years - that they are overcharging consumers by £100 million a year. Customers were paying interest rates of 30% or more and being overcharged for card insurance and late payment fees.

STICKS AND STONES....
Magistrates jailed partially blind pensioner Christine Boswell for 14 days because she kept swearing at people living near her sick mother. The streets will be a lot safer now.

PUBLIC SECTOR PENSION ANGER
Workers in the public sector are furious over proposals to raise their retirement age and three million are threatening to strike to defend their pensions. The majority of workers in the private sector have seen their pension entitlements slashed and they already have a retirement age of 65. Also, private sector workers, through their tax, pay the pensions and wages of ALL civil servants, town hall workers, NHS staff, teachers, firemen and police. There are now 5,800,000 workers in the public sector, 560,000 more than when Labour came to power, and after financing that lot, private sector workers have to scrimp to afford their own pensions.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE
Terry Bearpark hit Heath Randall on the head with a spade as the thug attacked a terrified woman neighbour, Frances Falshaw. Frances was desperately trying to protect herself as Randall's accomplice pressed her head against a window and hit her with a hammer. Terry knocked the burglar over the head with a shovel. He said, "There was this lad swinging a hammer at my head. It just missed me but I saw the shovel lying on the floor. I picked it up and hit him. I caught him a good one on the head and he went down. He tried to get up but I hit him again." Judge Guy Whitburn gave Terry a £100 reward and told him, "What you did was absolutely right. I only wish you'd hit him harder." Randall, who had a previous conviction for imprisoning a 75-year-old man in a house, was jailed for seven years for assault.

FUEL PROTEST
Fuel protesters have vowed to bring Britain to a standstill as the cost of petrol hits a record £5 a gallon. Campaign groups said protests outside oil refineries and motorway blockades would escalate unless the Government agreed to cut the duty on fuel. However, Ray Holloway, the director of the Petrol Retailers Association, said that blockades would push the price of petrol even higher, adding, "When something is in short supply, the price tends to go up, not down." What he failed to mention though, was the fact that when there is an abundance of oil, production is reduced in order to keep the price artificially high. Oil companies have blamed the high cost of petrol at the forecourts on the escalating cost of crude oil. How much profit are Shell and BP making? Oh yes, £1.6 MILLION AN HOUR. See also: Fuel Crisis

NEW POLICE APPROACH
Police officers are to be banned from pounding the beat in pairs. Patrols will be split up in a bid to cover more ground and make them more approachable to the public. So where do they pound the beat in pairs then? Come to think of it, where do they pound the beat?

VICTIMS STILL DON'T COUNT
Pensioner Kathleen O'Shea threw herself into a river after years of abuse from her neighbours. She left suicide notes saying she would be free of the daily torment and had complained to police at least 10 times about noise, taunts and distress in the eight years she lived next door to Lyndon Charles and his family. Pc Clare Dolphin said, "We called to see the neighbours but they always denied the claims." The inquest heard the Crown Prosecution Service looked into her death but ruled there was no corroborative evidence to take the matter further. The coroner recorded a suicide verdict and said he would ask the police to look into the case formally and make a full report to the family. Mr and Mrs Charles would not comment and said they had sought legal advice.

TAX REBEL
Vicar Alfred Ridley was jailed for 28-days by Towcester magistrates after refusing to pay South Northamptonshire council's 8.5% tax rise in 2004. He was £65 in arrears. Meanwhile, real criminals continue to roam the streets.

TOO TALL
Ben Sargeaunt-Thomson, a graduate who won a place to train at the National Air Traffic Control Centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, had his job offer retracted because of his 6ft 10in height. Health and safety assessors ruled it would be "dangerous" for him to have his 38in legs under the desks. Mr Sargeaunt-Thomson, of Northampton, claimed indirect sexual discrimination against National Air Traffic Services but a tribunal panel agreed that any discomfort he might experience while sitting at a desk might hamper his ability to carry out an air traffic control job safely. Mr Sargeaunt-Thomson said, "I believe I should not be discriminated against because of my height in the same way as you cannot discriminate against someone in a wheelchair. Nats wasted three years of my life by messing around with this. It took them two-and-a-half years to realise I was tall." Ben has since started work for Air Traffic Control in Luxemburgh, where they have adjustable desks. See, other countries can do it.

PHONE PORN
Fourteen-year-old Callum George, took his new Sagem mobile phone back to Tesco for repairs but it came back full of porn pictures and movies of couples. Tesco apologised and started an investigation. Will Tesco please have a look at my phone before they change their policy?

ANOTHER WHITEWASH
Network Rail was convicted of breaking safety rules before the Hatfield disaster, but five rail executives were cleared of charges relating to the crash that killed four people and injured over a hundred. So who exactly was responsible then?

KIDS WILL BE KIDS
The sister of a 12-year-old girl who nearly hanged a boy of five said, "She is no monster." Just high jinks was it?

COVER-UP
Madame Tussauds, in London, unveiled a new waxwork of Prince William complete with a full head of hair, disguising his bald patch, and no sign of his receding forehead. They're not making the models life-like anymore then?

WHAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ONE....
MP David Davies asked for a £48,000 Heritage Lottery Fund handout to make a film about taxpayers after the same amount was given to make a film on gipsy culture. Mr Davies applied to tell the story of “people who live in houses”. The film would explain the “ancient code” of planning permission, clearing up rubbish and buying tax discs.

Next >>>