Not Guilty of stealing a banana - costs UK tax payer £20,000!!!

[MinionZombie]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090808/tuk-banana-theft-trial-costs-taxpayer-20-45dbed5.html

I shit you not ... this is how retarded the UK legal system has become.

And next year I'll get to see it first hand as I must attend lame-ass Jury Service next year (I deferred it this year as I have a clash with a doctor's appointment). I bet it'll be some chav who stole a car or something that so doesn't need a jury too.

Anyway - how daft and wasteful is that?! I've said it many times before, the amount of money being wasted in the UK right now is criminal, especially in the public services ... ... ugh, I'd better not get started or I'll be here all day moaning.


It had been alleged that Mr Gallagher entered an Italian restaurant before it opened and stole the banana.

But bloody hell - £20,000 bill for the tax payer over a 25p banana! :eek:

I mean seriously - ARE YOU ******* KIDDING ME?! :rant:

Shamefully - no. :annoyed:

Hello? Common Sense? Where did you vanish to all those years ago? :stunned:

[FoodFight]

So.......the banana thief is still at large?:lol:

[EvilNed]

This is an outrage... Get me the mayor!

[SRP76]

Banana Boy requested the jury trial, by the way. It wasn't forced upon him.

What, you want to just start telling people no, they can't have that right? That'll work real well.

[EvilNed]

What really should have happened is that the store owner should have dropped the charges as soon as the guy demanded a trial. I mean, isn't that just one of those situations where you go: "Bah, just forget it..."

[FoodFight]

Not if you stand on principle.

[MinionZombie]

Not if you stand on principle.
Which involves a 25p banana, and a £20,000 bill for the tax payer, plus wasted court time that could have been spent locking up far, far, far, far, far worse people. :rockbrow:

[FoodFight]

Which involves a 25p banana, and a £20,000 bill for the tax payer, plus wasted court time that could have been spent locking up far, far, far, far, far worse people.

Were there 'far,far,far,far,far worse people on the docket that day? I don't know, and neither do you.

It was the defendent's right to insist on a jury trial, and despite the QC's efforts and funding, he prevailed. Had it been a magistrate trial, he most likely would have lost and it would have been cheaper (supposedly) for the government. But would justice have been served? I don't think so. He deserves to have his day in court and he did. The weakness of the prosecution's case found him to be not guilty (again, a magistrate trial would most likely have found the opposite even with the same evidence presented).

For a bottom-line kind of guy like you, perhaps you should petition your MP to do away with those silly 'jury trials'. It would save a bundle.

[MinionZombie]

IT WAS A 25p BANANA!!! :eek::eek::eek:

Some common sense should have come into play here - hell, this is the sort of pissy little 'dispute' (to give it a really jumped up name it doesn't deserve) that a street-beat copper would have sorted out.

£20,000 over a bloody banana - what an absolute WASTE of tax payer cash.


Speaking after the verdicts, Mr Gallagher, of Linwood Road, Handsworth, Birmingham, said he was relieved he had chosen a Crown Court trial.

He said he believed that magistrates would have found him guilty.

The 23-year-old told the Wolverhampton Express and Star: "It's shocking, it's just a waste of taxpayers' money."

Again - where's the COMMON SENSE - this isn't some massive injustice, it isn't some huge dispute, or even an average dispute, it's not the heist of the century, or even an average robbery - it's one bloke who apparently stole ONE BANANA. :rant:

...

Damnit, Neil - where are you, surely you've got something British to say about this clear waste of tax payer's money? :)

[FoodFight]

Again - where's the COMMON SENSE - this isn't some massive injustice, it isn't some huge dispute, or even an average dispute, it's not the heist of the century, or even an average robbery - it's one bloke who apparently stole ONE BANANA.

Apparently he didn't as he was found 'not guilty'.

[MinionZombie]

Apparently he didn't as he was found 'not guilty'.
Hence saying "apparently stole" ... could have used "alleged to have" though I guess ... but it's like, for £20,000 you don't even get a conviction for stealing the infamous banana. :rolleyes:

Everyone involved who thought it was a good idea to let this trial go ahead deserves a few hard bitch slaps to try and knock the stupid out of their heads.

[kortick]

Its sad cuz he wanted that bannana cuz
he was probably...hungry.

He wasnt right to take it, and he did have the
right to a trial but i think if that money the state
spent on that trial was donated to a food bank
to help people out in these rough times that would
be a better use of the money.

when people are stealing just to eat there
are bigger problems then how much court
trials cost.

[FoodFight]

but it's like, for £20,000 you don't even get a conviction for stealing the infamous banana.

So then, 20 grand should have bought the conviction?

Since you seem to be ruled by emotion on this issue, let me ask you this? If you had been 'alledged to have unlawfully taken a banana', would you refuse a defense that cost that amount? What amount of public funds would be acceptable on your behalf?

Or perhaps you'd opt for the magistrate trial, where your conviction (and subsequent tax savings) would be most likely guaranteed?


Its sad cuz he wanted that bannana cuz
he was probably...hungry.
'he' was found 'not guilty'. The true banana thief is still at large. That is where law enforcement should be focusing its' efforts.

[Tricky]

Jury service is quite interesting actually MZ as long as you get on a decent case, I did it in january last year & helped get a nonce sent down for 5 years, the judge we had was quite harsh the way they should be, not like some of these poncey light sentencing ones

[MinionZombie]

Jury service is quite interesting actually MZ as long as you get on a decent case, I did it in january last year & helped get a nonce sent down for 5 years, the judge we had was quite harsh the way they should be, not like some of these poncey light sentencing ones
I don't want jury service to be interesting, I don't want it to last more than a day, and I'd rather not have to do it - but I have to next year. :mad: I've already deferred (because of a clash with a doctor's appointment), and that's it - you get sod all deferrals after that - what if the chance of a lifetime came up but it clashed with having to listen to some chav moan about another chav's loud music ... or hear the tax payer's cash draining away as someone says they never stole a banana.

£20,000 being spent on a 25p banana is just ridiculous - common sense should have prevailed somewhere along the line - even the 'alleged banana thief' said it was a "shocking" waste of tax payer's money - how bloody cheeky is that?! :eek:

Pathetic.

Kortick - indeed, the money could have been far better spent on a vast array of other things, especially as tax payer's cash pretty much goes into one massive pot from which grow many furiously sucking straws.