Richard O. Smith - As Thick as Thieves: Foolish Felons & Loopy Laws

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With thanks to Marcel OLeary for the illustrations. Vast, colossal, ginormous bigger than the biggest thing ever bigger than a Douglas Adams allusion thanks to Oliver Ledbury for wise counsel and proofing. And special thanks to commissioning editor Jenny Briancourt and Chris Ogle at The History Press.

Crime doesnt pay. Really, it doesnt. So stop thinking about that workplace scam now. Whats the most likely outcome of committing a crime: holiday or Holloway? Well, weve gathered the evidence.

Robbers and burglars are often incompetent. If not, why have specific crimes called attempted robbery and attempted burglary? Most professions do not require such phrases as attempted nursing or attempted accountancy. This reflects badly on the nations bungling burglars.

Thats why weve asked you to come down to the station and inspect our assembled line-up of thick thieves, asinine assailants, feeble felons and swindling simpletons all standing in an ID parade of incompetence, waiting to be picked out as Britains stupidest criminal. They wont rob you of your sense of humour. Or prove capable of robbing anything else.

Dipping their stolen bucket of opportunity into the well of other peoples stuff, only to fall into the well themselves (and get the bucket stuck on their head), this book chronicles the crimes against common sense committed by these dim-witted deviants.

Featuring the bank robber who used a No. 72 bus as his getaway vehicle (it was almost as though the police knew where he was heading to next); the bag snatcher who robbed an elderly lady of the bag shed just used to clear up responsibly after her dogs; and the burglars who left their four-year-old son, and a wallet containing full ID, at the crime scene.

Also rounded up for routine questioning are the bank robbers who gifted the police a dropped map marking the preferred route from bank to hideout, and armed robbers who raided a laundry van to steal used towels whilst their intended target, a wages van, drove slowly past.

Read them their right to remain ridiculed. Like the man who handed himself in to claim the wanted reward money; the professional thieves caught unloading the stolen gear from their heist on CCTV their own CCTV camera; and the bank robber who couldnt escape the building society because he was repeatedly pushing the pull door until he took a run up and knocked himself out. Joining them inside HMP Stupid is a shoplifter who cunningly removed the security chips from items, only to stuff the tags into his pockets. Plus a pill-popping ninety-two year old who, when arrested for kerb crawling, decided to make a run for it. Unsurprisingly, the police were able to catch up with him.

Charged with being in possession of an idiotic plan and sentenced to a life term of stupidity, theyre reversing the getaway vehicle into a police car and handing over their belt to the custody sergeant with the inevitable consequence of their trousers falling down. Its a case (admittedly, a rather easy one) for the police to Dial M For Muppet.

Everyone likes to see justice done to someone else!

When a known bag-snatcher spotted a frail old lady holding an inviting bag outside the post office in a deserted street, the words candy and baby must have crossed the criminals mind.

Sprinting towards the defenceless old lady in Tarring near Worthing, West Sussex, he swiped her carrier bag. The crook then selected the gear he usually reserved for being chased by Lidls security man, and legged it at maximum speed from the crime scene.

The stolen bag must have felt excitingly heavy. Obviously the state pension was more generous than its reputation, since the old ladys weighty purse felt like it must be stuffed with lots of cash. Then the dim-witted deviant felt a warmth emitting from the grabbed bag. Mmm. Maybe grandma had popped into the bakery after shed picked up her pension. Perhaps he dipped his hand inside to reveal the warm tasty treat within. At exactly this point his optimism would have evaporated.

The old lady had responsibly cleaned up after her dogs, and it was this bag and its contents that the pooch poo purloiner had just snatched!

By now he had discovered the truth: he was a crap thief. Literally.

Intent on proving that youth is fleeting, but immaturity can last a lifetime, a twenty-eight-year-old man decided to steal an iPad after heavy snow.

Breaking into a house in Darlington, County Durham, one night in 2013, the nocturnal nicker carried the high-tech loot to his own house through deserted pre-dawn snowy streets. On arrival, the police immediately had a clear impression of who was responsible specifically, the clear impression of his size 11 trainers with a distinctive sole pattern.

Joining the dots, police tracked the track-suited hardware hauler to his home 1 mile across town. There the authorities discovered the iPad in a wardrobe and its corresponding charger stashed behind the washing machine, where the thief had secreted the items after cold footing it from the crime scene.

Whiplash claims are often tempting to the mentally challenged criminal fraternity, who unwisely view them as a source of free money from the insurance industry. This is decidedly odd logic, given the insurance industry is not known for paying out even for genuine bona fide claims. The small print usually takes care of that: Sorry Sir, but as it clearly says on page 124 of the policy, or it does when you magnify the 0.1 font size and squirt lemon juice to reveal our invisible print, that claims are invalidated if the claimant or policyholder is in possession of a surname. Do you have a surname, Sir?

Scams have been attempted on a surprising scale. One group of deceptive desperados decided that the currency for measuring credibility is large numbers. If you turn up with thirty extras, then no insurance fraud investigator will dare be suspicious, right? Er No. That makes them even more suspicious.

An entire bus was loaded with thirty crooked passengers, all claiming they had chronic whiplash resulting from an accident that was so minor that the driver of the car that had supposedly shunted the multi-ton bus testified that he did not notice, feel or hear any impact.

The crooks cover story insisted that the bus was taking them to an arranged night out at a greyhound meeting. The moment when the mens stories really went to the dogs was the decision by investigators to check with the greyhound track whether a booking had been made. No, it transpired, it had not. Those crafty law enforcers who would have ever predicted that they would employ sneaky underhand tactics like checking whether everyones collective story checked out?

Looking more suspicious than a bald man in a barbers queue, all thirty of the men were charged with insurance fraud.

Following a 999 call from a vigilant neighbour, police arrived at a property in Leicester in 2013 to discover that a back window had been smashed and an annoyed burglar was hiding in a garden shed.

Police decided to check the culprits phone for potential clues, and discovered he had just sent the text message: Ive told you 20 times dont ring me when Im out robbing.

You know that bit the police are always obligated to say upon making an arrest? Something about anything you say may be taken down in evidence and used against you later in court where it may harm your defence? Well, thats a particularly exquisite example.

The villain had numerous other convictions, including being caught driving whilst disqualified on five separate occasions. When chased by the constabulary through innumerable red lights in a frantic high-speed pursuit, he stopped his vehicle to place a bag containing a stolen laptop and iPod under a hedge in full view of the police, and then recommenced the chase. The pursuing Bow Street Runners immediately recovered the items. There may be lots of media articles about the young, white, working class becoming invisible, but it rarely means literally.