Not so elementary, Dr Watson
Cerberus’ network of overseas spies has done it again. First up is a fascinating little story from China. A blackmailer operating under the pseudonym of Sherlock Holmes (no less) has been arrested for extorting money from allegedly corrupt Government officials by threatening to expose their ‘misdeeds’.
More than 100 officials across the country received demands for cash in letters circulated by the ‘Sherlock Holmes Private Detective Agency’. Several mayors and civil servants, it seems, had paid anything up to GB pound 1,200 a piece to buy the blackmailer’s silence.
It transpires that this not-so-original scam was dreamt up by an as-yet-unnamed official from Luoyang in the central province of Henan. A million miles away from 221B Baker Street, then. Nonetheless, Cerberus suspects that Basil Rathbone will be turning in his grave.
Squatting apes go off the rails
More overseas news…Police in India have arrested 28 railway porters – and 25 monkeys – all of whom were involved in a train reservation racket.
The monkeys had been trained to jump through windows and occupy reserved seats on notoriously crowded trains. Porters would then charge passengers who had booked places an extortionate fee to remove the hairy squatters.
Cerberus can smell the faint whiff of irony here, as we fare little better on home shores. Ever tried reserving a seat for a long-distance journey, only to find that some lager lout is happily stationed in your place, refuses to budge and, what’s more, the train officials are nowhere to be seen? Mmm. We all know that one, don’t we ladies and gentlemen?
Barking mad
PC Alan Ross, a specialist police dog handler for more than a decade, is suing his own force over claims that his hearing has been damaged by the constant noise of loud barking. 28-year-old Ross, from Kineller near Aberdeen, is enlisting the help of the Scottish Police Federation’s lawyers, who will try to prove that the young PC’s ‘lugs’ have suffered from incessant trips out with the pooches in police vans. He has, Cerberus suspects, been driven barking mad.
As a consequence, the Chief Constable of Grampian Police, Andrew Brown, faces a civil action at Aberdeen Sheriff Court to the tune of a cool GB pound 15,000.
Cerberus has only one comment to make on this matter. “It’s a dog’s life, Andrew”…
Let’s hear it for the Girls!
The burglar must have thought he was in for easy pickings when he broke into a pensioners’ sheltered housing complex – but he reckoned without the bravery of 80-year-old Hilda Dilworth and friend Josephine Armstrong, herself a mere slip of a girl at 71.
These two brave widows confronted the raider at the Princess of Wales Home in the Newcastle district of Byker, locked him in the lavatory and waited for the cavalry – otherwise known as the local police – to arrive on scene. He was then arrested.
At long last, it seems, Newcastle has unearthed something every bit as strong as the city’s famed Brown Ale. Its very own Golden Girls.
Dusen keeps smelling a rat
Aptly-named ‘Stinky Stick-Up Man’ by police in Calgary, Canada, a serial bank robber who remains at large is leaving the local bobbies a vital clue at each of his victim’s premises.
An appalling body odour! The deodorant-shy raider is currently wanted for eight heists, with acting sergeant Al Van Dusen hot on his smelly trail.
Could this be a money-making opportunity for all those excellent biometrics specialists in the security sector? Forget fingerprint recognition. Cast iris scanning aside. Cerberus has seen the future… ‘Odour Zone. The new scratch-and-sniff access control system from Fragrant Security Ltd. Visit our stand at IFSEC for further details’. It’s only a matter of time…
The truth, the bald truth…
Just the other day, Cerberus was titilated by a court case at The Old Bailey. A trial that was held up for an hour – at a cost of GB pound 6,000 – after the accused pilfered a cigarette from one of the juror’s packets during a break in proceedings.
Forced to delay the hearing while the matter was investigated, the judge told the court: “A juror who resembles Yul Brynner has made a serious complaint against the defendant.” The judge gave the offender a ‘ticking off’ for nearly causing the three-day trial to be abandoned.
The accused, a 22-year-old scrap dealer, apologised. “I was desperate for a ciggie,” he said. Clearly, a classic case of the Magnificent Mild Sevens…
