I don\'t believe it .....
 

Police spent more than £10,000 of public money, and used a helicopter and a spotter plane, to convict a woman of driving while eating an apple. Officers spent months gathering evidence and building a vast case against 23-year-old Sarah McCaffery – and yesterday she was fined £60.

The nursery nurse was forced to attend court 10 times before the fine was finally handed out by magistrates at South Shields, Tyneside. Victims of crime groups and campaigners for taxpayers were furious at what they see as a scandalous waste of public money. Officers swung into action after McCaffery was spotted eating a golden delicious at the wheel of her Ford Ka.

She refused to accept a £30 on-the-spot fine, claiming she was in full control of the car, and said she would fight it in court. Astonishingly, police then called in a spotter plane to film her route, then repeated the exercise with a police helicopter. Officers then videoed the route from a squad car and used the footage as part of yesterday’s two and a half hour hearing.

The costs of the whole proceedings against McCaffery are estimated at £10,000. She said: "It is a joke they put so much effort into this. I couldn’t believe it when they brought all this video evidence into court. "You’d think they’d have better things to do. Aren’t there enough proper criminals for them to catch?" Her solicitor, Geoffrey Forrester, said: “This is all about trying to crush her because she is the one who stood up and said 'this is silly'."

A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: "As the defendant chose a court trial rather than accept a fixed penalty, we were obliged to gather all appropriate evidence to present our case."

Matthew Elliot of the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "The thousands of pounds spent on this case could have been spent trying to tackle real criminals, the people who burgle our houses and steal our cars."

[Edited on 25-1-2005 by Henners]

if only we could say it is surprising.
****s

In all fairness, it was her that requested a trial at court and the police then had to gather enough evidence against her to prosecute - using a helicopter and a plane as well as a car to video the route may be a bit overkill, but if that's what it takes to secure the conviction then that is what will happen.

However, the application of the law fairly across all crimes is shown to be a mockery with cases like this. Any Judge or Magistrate worth their while should call the Chief Inspector to the bench and get him to explain why they felt it worthwhile to use the resources they did.

It's a shame the same effort isn't put into securing convictions and then punishing the little scrotes who steal cars and burgle houses.

this must mean everyone smoking while driving can get nicked.

What about changing gear?

I'm I aloud to wind the window down ?

While I can see both sides of the fence for this case - the excess it has been taken too only deminishes respect for the police in the public's eyes.

I also believe in the north east a woman was proscuted for drinking out of sports bottle after a gym class.

Where has 'common sense' gone ???

What a bunch of fcuking idiots. No excuses, the d1ckhead that stopped her in the first place should be fired, the responsible (sic) person that allowed the money to be spent should be fired, and the magistrate should have ripped the pair of them apart in court.

Makes no odds. So few people are willing to stand up against absurd, petty, and irrelevant laws that this is only set to get worse. :(

Cretins.

Yep, I guess theoretically you can be nicked for doing anything that means you don't have both your hands and both your feet free to control the car. This means swigging water from a bottle, lighting a ciggy, fumbling for a CD in the glovebox, obviously eating anything.

As Antonye says, the stupidity is not that the police spent so much money raising sufficient evidence - I can see that once somebody stands up and says 'this is stupid - I'm going to court' they have to go through all this rigmarole. The real stupidity is in the judgement of the plod that nicked her. Surely, unless eating the apple was causing her driving to go to pieces all but the most overzealous idiot would've just let her off with a caution. Rewind a week or so to a plonker in an Elise who got let off with a caution for coming round a bend sideways on the Cat and Fiddle almost into the path of an oncoming patrol car. Hmmmm would the apple munching cause driving as ludicrous as that? I doubt it.

I would imagine she probably got a bit lippy at being pulled for such a trivial thing and the PC decided to exercise his powers just because he could. Plonker.

I feel sorry for all the police in traffic who, let's face it do a damned difficult job at times. Last week, my wife's uncle was witness to a head on collision near Milton Keynes. A car overtook a long line of traffic, inexplicably failing to notice an oncoming minibus which it hit head on. The car driver was killed instantly, all the passengers in the minibus were trapped. My wife's uncle was trying to free some trapped passengers when the minibus went up in flames, killing everyone inside. The traffic cops were amongst the first on this grizzly scene, having to deal with the aftermath.

Imagine doing a depressing job like that, then coming home to see on the news that one of your 'colleagues' had tarred you all with the pillock brush again.

Agree completely Jools - it probably wasn't even a traffic copper but an overzealous policeman in a normal patrol car.

What's happened to "having a word" these days?

I am sure that the news this morning said she was originally stopped as the policeman saw her holding something to her mouth which he believed to be a phone.

For this reason it seems acceptable that she should have been stopped, but this would indicate that the copper then obviously felt he had to take it further anyway.

There was also report of a man being fined because he was distracted by his wife unwrapping a kit kat for him! surely this is madness?

No ofence to those that have kids, but in my experience of friends that carry young children in the car this is the biggest distraction factor there is and is often the case that you will see a mother weaving on the road trying to turn and pay attention to the child.

It just takes one numpty to get all tarred......

I had a funny last week - and wish I had bothered to take it further:

Driving back to work at lunchtime from seeing to the ponies, I drove down the dual carriageway ringroad.
Had a panda right on my bumper (in my smart, so scarey:o ) for the last quarter of a mile. Proceed round roundabout & he indicates with blue lights for me to pull over.
At the first safe place I did, and the passener chappie then proceeds to rip into me about speeding (moi?) - and alleges I was travelling between 35 - 37 mph - and asks what I had to say in response?

Well, I couldnt help to s******! - the limit on that bit of road is 40!!!! - after that, the conversation turned into a rather disagreeable one, till I pulled out my mobile phone - & also wrote down his reg, took his number (was about to call local nick) - and then his colleague popped his head out to enquire as to what was happening!

Long story, but now cut short... exit 2 rather red faced bobbies back to station. CK on phone to local nick to ascertain as to when new training is to be given:lol:
I laugh now - but last week, I was:flame:

C:saint: who always knows her limits!:lol:

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everybody else on this, but ultimately she wasn't in full control of the car, she was offered the fixed penalty option but decided to go to court. It was exessive with the Helicopter, Aeroplane etc for a small offence, but if she was paying attention she'd have dropped it before she got to the policeman anyway.I'm sick of seeing peopleon the phone, smoking a fag bollocking the kids whilst driving, if you're behind the wheel, full attention please!!!
I'm perfect of course!!
:saint:

Are you who i think you are??

Dunno??

do you ride a Honda these days?

Guilty as charged... your powers of deduction are impressive!

figured it was you!!! Hope you are well :D

Gonna be out and about again early March, give us a shout if you fancy it... I even know of a real bike that you could buy!!!

:P

you're on. Would the real bike be a 748 or a Bostrom?? not that I'm interested of course! Have you seen or heard anything off our mate??

well you could have either tbh :D although I am reliably informed that a yellow 748r would be much faster :D

I haven't recently, but I think Fred did before we went on holiday.

Damo, you know the Bostrom is the way ahead..... fully blinged up to your liking :D

I have gone to the dark side...

<<<<<< See the pic

Not as dark as you though ;)

She's a e beaut! the 749/999 series don't normally do it for me, but the R is a different matter. I'll just have to stick with my CBR1000 (until I've saced enough pennies for a desmocedici!)

Good story CK :lol::lol:

The thing is that whatever the rights and wrongs of it all, shouldn't we expect some consistency from the law? Let's face it, we've all eaten a sandwich/choccy bar/sausage roll or whatever at the wheel. I think that since everybody has done this type of thing without ever feeling out of control that the police would inevitably have almost zero public sympathy nicking people for it.

Mobile phones and turning round to deal with kids are a different matter, but....

A few years ago, about this time of year, I was on the last stretch of my commute home from Bracknell (thank God I work from home nowadays). I was on the M1 going north near Hemel Hempstead and I was in the middle lane, following the flow of traffic, but still going too fast. I was only doing 40mph, but the Friday night traffic was very heavy and what made it so grim was the sort of rain and spray where your wipers are on warp speed but still don't clear the screen. And it was about 7:30 pm so it was dark.

Two things drew my attention to the Rover 75 in the outside lane. First, it passed slowly but so closely that it actually flicked my offside mirror. Second, the interior light was on, which, as we all know decreases your visibility even further. I looked across at the driver (looked a bit like that bloke who narrates 'Grumpy Old Men') and he had a book propped up on the wheel. This wasn't a quick glance at a map book or something, he had a paperback novel on there and was engrossed in reading it. I blasted the old airhorns at him and he lazily looked across. I gave him the international sign for 'you're a nutter mate' and he flicked me the V's :flame:

I was so mad that I followed him all the way up the motorway (he was reading all the way). I'd memorised his numberplate and as we passed Toddington services I pulled in to report it to the Motorway patrol office there. Gave them the reg number and this guy's unbelievable behaviour and their response? "Your word against his mate, can't do nuffink".

....Join the queue!

Here's one for u !
(wait for it Andy B along in a minute:lol:)

Last year poodling along in my jamjar on a busy "A" road back from Wolverhampton!

it was 3.15pm and the next thing i see is a Panda car with Blues on coming up behind me at a fast rate of knotts!!

i move over to left, and he passes me on a zebra crossing with kids waiting to cross! when it goes past me, the WPC in the passenger side is sitting with her arm around his neck and the driver switches the blues off and carries on at speed up the road.

I catches up with it and look at my speedo and we are doing 65mph in a 30!

it then turns in to the nick a few yards later, and they get out and walk casualy across the car park and into the station.

so i walks into the station and asks the duty sarge if there was a log of an emergency at the station , he looks at me a bit bemused and ask's why!!!!!!

so i tel him the story and asks him if he thought using the blue lights as a means to get through traffic was acceptable?

to which he replies he must have just left them on from a previous shout!

so i ask him if overtaking on a zebra crossing was in order?

to which he replies as long as the officer was in full control of the vehicle not a problem!

so i ask would he think it was acceptable for the WPC to have her Arm around him ?

to which he replies perhaps they are lovers!

to which i replied ok then i would like to see the inspector!!!

he asks me why ?
and i tell him i'm gonna make a formel complaint and follow it through as he was driving dangerously and without due care!

to which he replies!

sonny if you want to drive your car around these parts in the future, without getting stoped for every minor offence we can find! i suggest you withdraw your complaint and leave it at that and i'll have a word with the two officers!

say no more and i left :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

And this no doubt is one of the things that contributed to you being 'mad'! :mad:

Why is it posting twice?

dont know

dont know:lol::frog::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:;):D

If you ask me, I think the real problem is with the judicial system that actually decided to hear the case. With all the presure on police officers nowadays with quotas and targets etc, it's hardly surprising that offences that in the past would have been looked over or dealt with by a 'discussion' at the roadside, now get taken to the enth degree. I'm not saying that there's never an officer who resembles Constable Savage from the Not The 9-oclock News Sketch and take things way too far, but there's pillocks in all walks of life isn't there.

In this case I think my gripe would be with a) the self righteous, trumped up magistrate etc who thought their time and taxpayers money was well spent entertaining such a charge or b) the system that makes them entertain it in the first place.

Either way, it was a bloody expensive apple.

[Edited on 25-1-2005 by Guido]

[Edited on 25-1-2005 by lynn]

What I am trying to say is that in reply to comments about those who have kids in the back it's a real problem. A few years ago I realised that it had been a good while since I had driven a car in a calm and undistracted manner. I knew I was more conscious of what was happening in the back than on the road. So I attended a police driving course in Milton Keynes. It was excellent and certainly woke me up. Driving is something we all do very frequently and unlike the bike you are cocooned inside a car and it's easy to forget the possible dangers.
Doing anything, talking to a passenger, changing the radio etc can be a hazard. We all need to be more aware.

The thing is, it's all well and good saying that the copper should have just given her a warning/caution, but what good is that if she was denying that she was doing anything wrong and was getting lippy..I'm sure that if the lady had taken a bollicking and had seemed/acted contrite then she wouldn't have even got a fixed penalty.

Well, yes, but reading the comments on this thread, just how contrite would any of us have been in that situation?

My opion has never changed and this only goes to prove it more what a set of F@#K*NG W@#K@RS

Go do all the smack heads and other ba@#ards for robbing old foke and other people's of there hard earned things


:flame::flame::flame::flame::flame:

Nice leg Lily ;)

:puzzled::puzzled:
Can you see something we can't see?
Were you eating an apple when you were typing the reply?tut tut.

[Edited on 26-1-2005 by guest1]

Seem the original 'Apple' woman has dropped the charges against the police after she was told it would cost the public ANOTHER £10K+ to fight the case - at least she has some common sense!

I believe she is a nursery school teacher so, its hard to imagine her ranting at a copper in the first place.

But - as we have seen, anything is possible.

ps - Can we have Lynn's piccy on a calendar please.

Wow - yes - Ducati 'Calendar Girls' :devil::devil::devil: