Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This account of an Englishman’s night on the town that morphed into a Marx Brothers movie appeared in the “Daily Telegraph,” September 5, 1998:

A detective’s nephew who broke into an empty police station and dressed in a sergeant's uniform to run the front desk was cleared of burglary yesterday after a jury could not stop laughing. 

Simon Davey, 29, climbed through a lavatory window and staggered around Hailsham police station, East Sussex, after spending the night drinking at a darts competition. He had intended to report that he had not paid a taxi fare but when he found the station was unmanned he put on a sergeant's jacket and an inspector's cap and decided to be in charge of the desk, Lewes Crown Court was told.

A special constable who returned to the station spotted Davey and banged on the door. Davey opened it, rocked on his heels, and slurred "evenin' all." 

Davey, from Hailsham, was charged with burglary after a telephone wire, a broken part of an answering machine, and statement forms were found in his pockets. But the case was halted after Judge Richard Brown ordered that a tape of an interview between Davey and a detective be stopped because the jury kept laughing.

Davey, who had no previous convictions, had said in an interview that he knew the layout of Hailsham police station because his uncle Alan used to be the acting detective inspector and he had attended his 50th birthday party there. 

He said he had drunk eight or 10 pints at the Eastbourne Darts Open before a friend called a taxi, which he realised half way home he could not pay for. The driver dropped him off and unable to find any police officers, he let himself in and searched the station for someone before accidentally breaking an answering machine on which he tried to leave a message. He put the bits in his pocket. 

He added: "I thought there are no police here, so I will be the policeman on duty.  I came downstairs and saw an inspector's hat so I put it on just in case there was another idiot like me that night and decided I would be on the front desk. 

"When I saw the officer I said ‘evenin' all.' He was a bit stunned and I was too because I ended up in handcuffs." 

After ordering the not guilty verdict, the judge told the jury: "If anybody ever tells you judges are not human or don't live in the real world you can now put them straight" 

He told Davey: "There are amusing factors to this story but whatever you were doing that night befuddled by drink your actions have caused a great deal of inconvenience and a lot of public expense. It's not the sort of conduct you should risk doing again. It may mean that you have to limit your alcoholic intake the next time you go down the Eastbourne Darts Open." 

Davey was bound over to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years. 

After the case he said he had been disowned by his parents and had not spoken to his uncle since the incident. 

"My family are very proud and this has caused an uproar. I feel embarrassed at what I did and because this has cost the taxpayer a lot of money." 

Davey's wife Heidi said she was angry with him, but that even the police officer who reported what had happened had been laughing about it.

Davey, who is out of work with a back injury, added: "I have not had a drink since that day and I am never going near a police station again.”

I do hope Davey’s family quickly developed a sense of humor and forgave him.