The Horrors of the "Professional" World - Stories that will make you wonder how we exist.

[Coccxys]

I used to work in law enforcement and have lots of stories both funny and horrifying. So here are a few...

Spoiler: Don't party on a work night

One early when we were all getting in a group of three officers were talking about their night out the night before, with one of the officers looking a little rough. At the morning briefing the shift sgt (having not heard the conversation) asked the rough looking one if he was ok to which he said "yeah, just a heavy night." The entire room then stiffened up at him being stupid enough to admit it.

The next question was the killer and the officers didn't think before answering... The sgt asked the officer how he got to work and the officer instantly said "I drove as usual." After the briefing the sgt called the officer into the inspectors office, in there was the sgt, inspector and traffic sgt with a breathalyzer in his hand. That was the end of his career in law enforcement as well as needing to take the bus for a while.

Spoiler: Just tell the truth!

Some guy rang up and said some guy had broken into his house, stole some stuff (CDs) and attempted to rape his 16 year old daughter and they'd just jumped out of her window. We got over there bloody quickly and grabbed a 17 year old guy with the exact description and a backpack containing the items the guy said had been stollen. We got statements from the guy and his daughter, had to get specialist officers out to deal with his daughter. We did all the paperwork and got the guy charged with aggravated burglary and attempted rape, had him remanded to custody.

About a week later I get a case update requesting I go to the house to speak with the victims. So I rang them and went round, the dad very apologetically explained that the guy was his daughter's boyfriend. The daughter had lent him the CDs and told him to stay the night. The only thing she hadn't done is told her parents she had a boyfriend. So middle of the night the dad hears something from the daughter's room and looks in to find this boy in bed with his daughter and the daughter not wanting to get into trouble pretends she has no idea who it was.

I had to do the paperwork to get the kid released from custody and tried to press charges on the girl but the inspector wouldn't approve it because charging "the victim" would look bad in the press so the whole thing got dropped.

Spoiler: Horrifying

I attended a call from a woman who said her 14 year old daughter had been hit on by a taxi driver. I went along and took the full story and it was much, much worse (should have been a specialist officer attending it worse but the mum's story on the phone didn't put it to that level).

The girl regularly got taxis home from school (so clearly no confusion about being underage), on this occasion the driver had taken her to a remote location rather than home and insisted that she give him oral sex, while he was getting his junk out she'd managed to escape and make her way home.

Now this taxi company is well known as dodgy as fuck. When I went to find out the details of the driver they first went with "well we can't get that information on our system" then "only the manager knows how and he isn't here" and finally "well we don't record that information anyway". I threatened to seize their entire computer system due to it holding evidence in a serious crime, 30 seconds later I had the name and address of the driver.

I put together the case and put it forwards to the inspector because they have to approve cases of a certain level. They took one look at it and said it wouldn't be in the public interest to pursue it as it was clearly a "cultural misunderstanding". That happened way too often when it involved guys of a certain culture (guess which is it).

I was in the job long enough to get plenty of stories and a decent amount of mental scaring but left for many reasons. If you want to hear more then I'm sure I can write more out.

 

[BeanBidan]

Why is it that everytime I work somewhere some way some how I always get asked if I want to train to become a leader for a certain dept. I'm just a worker bee. Being authority isn't my style and if decisions and shit come from the territory it's a absolute nope. I work terrible under pressure of decisions. I just want to work so I can buy alcohol for my manic depression and wake up in the bath tub.

 

[pwincess fwuffypants]

I used to work in law enforcement and have lots of stories both funny and horrifying. So here are a few...

Spoiler: Don't party on a work night

One early when we were all getting in a group of three officers were talking about their night out the night before, with one of the officers looking a little rough. At the morning briefing the shift sgt (having not heard the conversation) asked the rough looking one if he was ok to which he said "yeah, just a heavy night." The entire room then stiffened up at him being stupid enough to admit it.

The next question was the killer and the officers didn't think before answering... The sgt asked the officer how he got to work and the officer instantly said "I drove as usual." After the briefing the sgt called the officer into the inspectors office, in there was the sgt, inspector and traffic sgt with a breathalyzer in his hand. That was the end of his career in law enforcement as well as needing to take the bus for a while.

Spoiler: Just tell the truth!

Some guy rang up and said some guy had broken into his house, stole some stuff (CDs) and attempted to rape his 16 year old daughter and they'd just jumped out of her window. We got over there bloody quickly and grabbed a 17 year old guy with the exact description and a backpack containing the items the guy said had been stollen. We got statements from the guy and his daughter, had to get specialist officers out to deal with his daughter. We did all the paperwork and got the guy charged with aggravated burglary and attempted rape, had him remanded to custody.

About a week later I get a case update requesting I go to the house to speak with the victims. So I rang them and went round, the dad very apologetically explained that the guy was his daughter's boyfriend. The daughter had lent him the CDs and told him to stay the night. The only thing she hadn't done is told her parents she had a boyfriend. So middle of the night the dad hears something from the daughter's room and looks in to find this boy in bed with his daughter and the daughter not wanting to get into trouble pretends she has no idea who it was.

I had to do the paperwork to get the kid released from custody and tried to press charges on the girl but the inspector wouldn't approve it because charging "the victim" would look bad in the press so the whole thing got dropped.

Spoiler: Horrifying

I attended a call from a woman who said her 14 year old daughter had been hit on by a taxi driver. I went along and took the full story and it was much, much worse (should have been a specialist officer attending it worse but the mum's story on the phone didn't put it to that level).

The girl regularly got taxis home from school (so clearly no confusion about being underage), on this occasion the driver had taken her to a remote location rather than home and insisted that she give him oral sex, while he was getting his junk out she'd managed to escape and make her way home.

Now this taxi company is well known as dodgy as fuck. When I went to find out the details of the driver they first went with "well we can't get that information on our system" then "only the manager knows how and he isn't here" and finally "well we don't record that information anyway". I threatened to seize their entire computer system due to it holding evidence in a serious crime, 30 seconds later I had the name and address of the driver.

I put together the case and put it forwards to the inspector because they have to approve cases of a certain level. They took one look at it and said it wouldn't be in the public interest to pursue it as it was clearly a "cultural misunderstanding". That happened way too often when it involved guys of a certain culture (guess which is it).

I was in the job long enough to get plenty of stories and a decent amount of mental scaring but left for many reasons. If you want to hear more then I'm sure I can write more out.

Anyone abusing steroids? I hear it's pretty common in police departments these days.

 

[BeanBidan]

Anyone abusing steroids? I hear it's pretty common in police departments these days.

Really ? Source ? I'm curious

 

[JektheDumbass]

Considering how many times cops have to muscle unruly people to the ground I'd assume that many are juicing. I know I sure as shit would if I had a job like that.

 

[Coccxys]

Anyone abusing steroids? I hear it's pretty common in police departments these days.

Oh God yes. What's crazy is it is almost run like some sort of in-house MLM with long speeches about how it's natural and that things like roid rage and testicle shrinkage are just steriotypes and they've developed past that now. I have never seen anyone using the illegal kinds, just the ones that have just been developed and the government hasn't got round to adding them yet.

Considering how many times cops have to muscle unruly people to the ground I'd assume that many are juicing. I know I sure as shit would if I had a job like that.

You definitely see a progression through their career of coming in not touching the stuff to taking steroids to "keep up" to eventually hitting the bottle to forget all the shit they've dealt with. They've gotten much better at mental health with having counselors trained by the military for all that shit but there are still jobs you really don't want.

The average time someone lasts on the high risk sex offenders team is like 1-6 months before they end up off with stress, depression, PTSD etc. The bulk of that job is going through every single image and video of cp they seize to summarise it for the court and catagorise it. Surprisingly there are plenty of people who want to go to that department because they think they can make a huge difference (I mean they can) and will be able to remain suitably detached, I've seen people go from full of life and eager to get started to the thousand yard stare in alarmingly short period of time.

 

[neverendingmidi]

I was talking to one of our engineers who goes out to sites to do analysis when one of our pieces of equipment breaks and the customer is blaming us. He told me about one last year where something burst into flames and did serious damage to the customer’s building. As such they were screaming lawsuit so he was tossed on the next plane to look at it.

The unit had a battery rack as part of it, and that was what had burst into flames. Now data center batteries can catch fire, but you usually have to be abusing the everloving shit out of them to do so, and if they had been doing so we would’ve been in the clear. However, most of the batteries were utterly destroyed. Trying to figure out what had caused the fire was practically impossible. By a miracle he was able to find one label on one battery that was just this side of legible.

The customer had replaced the data center specific batteries with motorcycle batteries. Unsurprisingly this did not end well (and yes there is paperwork specifying what kind of batteries to use when replacing them). But hey, it wasn’t our maintenance people who worked on it! They had a contract with somebody else, so it was no longer my company’s problem!

 

[pwincess fwuffypants]

Really ? Source ? I'm curious

Just google "police steroid abuse" and start reading. Law and Order: SVU did an episode on the issue too, although it was a few years ago when they did so. Lemme see if I can find it if you want to watch it. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0629718/

Oh God yes. What's crazy is it is almost run like some sort of in-house MLM with long speeches about how it's natural and that things like roid rage and testicle shrinkage are just steriotypes and they've developed past that now. I have never seen anyone using the illegal kinds, just the ones that have just been developed and the government hasn't got round to adding them yet.

There's no roid rage anymore? Hmm. Then why do we keep hearing stories about cops going off half cocked and shooting everyone and anyone? There was a time when that didn't happen that much or if it did it only happened to black people and nobody cared. Now it happens to everyone.

Granted you watch a few bodycams and it's really hard to be sympathetic to some dindu who can hardly speak english and has no idea of how to follow directions at all or how to be polite.

But you roll the dice when you call the cops. Politeness costs nothing but could save your life if you're dealing with Officer Roid Rage. Keep that in mind the next news story you hear about some cop shooting a dog or tasering someone in the nuts.

 

[Varg Did Nothing Wrong]

There's no roid rage anymore? Hmm. Then why do we keep hearing stories about cops going off half cocked and shooting everyone and anyone?

Anything that increases testosterone production, which is the mechanism by which most steroids work, will increase aggressive or impulsive behavior.

 

[Coccxys]

There's no roid rage anymore? Hmm. Then why do we keep hearing stories about cops going off half cocked and shooting everyone and anyone? There was a time when that didn't happen that much or if it did it only happened to black people and nobody cared. Now it happens to everyone.

Oh there is, it's just whole marketing speil/lie they tell themselves. It is certainly reduced over the early steroids but it is there. Though it's not uncommon for officers to be taking unholy amounts of caffeine to get through the night shifts and that doesn't help them stay calm and collected either.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Now this taxi company is well known as dodgy as fuck. When I went to find out the details of the driver they first went with "well we can't get that information on our system" then "only the manager knows how and he isn't here" and finally "well we don't record that information anyway". I threatened to seize their entire computer system due to it holding evidence in a serious crime, 30 seconds later I had the name and address of the driver.

I put together the case and put it forwards to the inspector because they have to approve cases of a certain level. They took one look at it and said it wouldn't be in the public interest to pursue it as it was clearly a "cultural misunderstanding". That happened way too often when it involved guys of a certain culture (guess which is it).

I'm guessing you work in either Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, or Telford.

 

[Coccxys]

I'm guessing you work in either Rotherham, Rochdale, Oxford, or Telford.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was just restricted to those areas? No though, I work in another town with a significant amount of that community and every weekend we had to go round the town looking for the groups of men in their 20-30s from that community and the 13-15 year old white girls they were giving large quantities of alcohol to. The lack of support from above and the lack of ability to take action without that support was one of the main reasons I left. It was just find the , take the girls home, get the lecture from the parents about why are you disturbing them and why is it their problem that their teenage daughter is in the park pissed then find the same girls in the same locations a week later. Short of catching one of those guys with their dick in her there was no support for doing anything because it would "hurt community relations". I did try to whistle blow to our local paper and to a couple of Nationals but neither were interested.

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Wouldn't it be nice if it was just restricted to those areas? No though, I work in another town with a significant amount of that community and every weekend we had to go round the town looking for the groups of men in their 20-30s from that community and the 13-15 year old white girls they were giving large quantities of alcohol to. The lack of support from above and the lack of ability to take action without that support was one of the main reasons I left. It was just find the , take the girls home, get the lecture from the parents about why are you disturbing them and why is it their problem that their teenage daughter is in the park pissed then find the same girls in the same locations a week later. Short of catching one of those guys with their dick in her there was no support for doing anything because it would "hurt community relations". I did try to whistle blow to our local paper and to a couple of Nationals but neither were interested.

It's depressingly familiar. I had a family member who worked in Oxford at the time of Operation Bullfinch (the investigation into the grooming gang therein) for the local council, and they had to sit in on taxi licencing appeals. They reckoned something was afoot given the naughtiness of Oxford taxi drivers and general aura of iffiness surrounding them. Seriously, a lot of them had convictions for all sorts of things, but all of a sudden had "turned their life around" and had a wife and a kid or suchlike, and the taxi loicense was renewed out of pity. Again, and again, and again.

I think I mentioned I did a stint as an in house solicitor for [area] Police a while back on a contract. The amount of general bollox I had to sit through was off the scale. Only a minor horror, but one of the things they did was to lock down the desktop wallpaper on all computers in the building so it displayed a motivational infographic about their mission statement and vision statement in eye-watering colours. I was able, though, to find a path to the file that it was kept on on the server which was merely hidden as opposed to access denied. I contemplated, on my last day, drawing a huge spunking cock on it in MS Paint, but didn't because I didn't want them to tell the agent and thus hurt my prospects of finding further contract jobs through that agency.

Then again, the month afterwards I got offered a permanent job at a higher wage so I grabbed that. Fuck you in the heart, AL (my supervisor's initials.)

[Area] Police also are on my shit list because they once rejected my time sheet because I hadn't logged all my toilet usages as breaks on it.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

The company I used to work for got bought out in July of 2009 by a bigger company, and the four of five of us out of thirty they decided to keep on flew out to an unnamed rust belt factory town for training, then back a week later, and as we were landing the captain announced that they found Michael Jackson dead in Las Vegas.

 

[pwincess fwuffypants]

Wouldn't it be nice if it was just restricted to those areas? No though, I work in another town with a significant amount of that community and every weekend we had to go round the town looking for the groups of men in their 20-30s from that community and the 13-15 year old white girls they were giving large quantities of alcohol to.

Wait, the police in Bongistan are now juicing? I was assuming it was just us Murican rednecks that did this. Things must be getting bad in Bongland for the cops there to feel they need to juice. What about the rest of europe? Do the German fuzz, juice too these days?

 

[vanilla_pepsi_head]

Question. I'm assuming you're a doctor or suchlike. Here in Britain, the preferred ailment to claim to have to gain an enhanced tugboat is fibromyalgia, which manifests as chronic pain without any real apparent source or cause.

In your experience, what percentage of fibromyalgia sufferers are genuinely in pain and how many are doctor shopping to get money, asspats, or drugs. I myself am not entirely convinced it's a real illness, but falls into the realm of things line "morgellons" and "chronic Lyme disease" and "multiple chemical sensitivity."

Spoiler: Fucking long ass spergery about my take on "fibromyalgia"

The thing is even when someone is blatantly having psychosomatic symptoms, exaggerating/being a baby, or outright full of shit, it's not considered productive to say "lol bullshit" (I think some people need to be called out, but it's not acceptable for a medical professional to do so). Professionally we are more or less obligated to take people's reported symptoms at face value. We might be 100% sure that the woman with a sprained finger claiming chest pains suddenly because she knows it will get the ED doc's attention is in no danger whatsoever, but it could still be considered malpractice not to take it seriously. I'm sure some older doctors might call bullshit on people but it's not something I see. Personally I think fibromyalgia is a horseshit diagnosis, AnOminous is correct it's the "fucked if we know" option. I'm sure there are a few people saddled with a fibro diagnosis that truly do have extreme nerve pain or muscle aches that debilitate them due to some strange unknown or undiagnosed condition. But I think that is an extreme minority, and as a whole, there is a good fucking reason first line treatment for fibromyalgia is antidepressants.

The thing is, there's all kinds of crap that can cause chronic neuropathy or nerve pain (diabetes, chemo, accidents, infections, alcoholism, etc) in the absence of an observable physical injury, but it's also true that stress/anxiety/depression/psychosomatic conditions can and do cause pain that is perceived as 100% physical. This isn't new, the Ancient Egyptians wrote about hysteria for fucksake. Doctors might refer these patients to a pain clinic if they believe it's severe, but usually they'll make a psych referral or just prescribe some antidepressants and/or benzos to ease the patient's mental state and thus, hopefully, the pain. If they get diagnosed with fibromyalgia this is usually around when it happens.

I don't believe most fibro cases are necessarily drug seekers, but I freely admit I might be wrong. Usually drug seekers out themselves pretty quickly by asking for specific painkillers/benzos that are way inappropriate for someone who's never had them, claiming they're allergic to ibuprofen/naproxen/acetaminophen/diclofenac/ketorolac, or insisting their pain is a 10/10 while still capable of holding a conversation. Usually they are then refused, possibly sent to a pain clinic or given a list of addiction services. Some doctors don't care and will prescribe fucking anything, but the government is cracking down on them.

I think most fibromyalgia cases are depressed people who really are experiencing some level of physical pain, I don't think most of them are totally full of shit about that. As I'm sure most of us know, depression and laziness become a vicious cycle - depressed people who become chronically unemployed and completely idle will never get any better unless they force themselves to get off their ass. Therapy for depression is focused on just that (forcing yourself to do something productive at least once a day, then working up from there). The thing is, depressed people are experts at coming up with excuses not to do anything. In that case "chronic pain" is a very convenient scapegoat indeed. (FWIW I don't mean to sound overly harsh towards people with depression, it's a vicious cycle and can fuck you right up, I get that. Medication can help and most doctors aren't shy about prescribing it. But ultimately idleness makes depression worse and if you never force yourself to break the cycle in small ways you will never feel any better, simple as that). I think diagnosing people with fibromyalgia in cases like this is doing them a huge disservice by giving them a fancy medical excuse to sit around and do fuck all. And for whatever it's worth I don't think I've ever seen someone diagnosed with fibromyalgia but not depression.

Getting a tugboat for depression may or may not be helpful, it's up to the person whether they use the relative financial security to take time to improve and find something they really like to do, or waste it sitting around popping Xanax and watching TV all day. Most doctors will give people the benefit of the doubt here and agree to fill out paperwork for tugboat applications, but it's up to the government to decide and I've got no idea if "fibromyalgia" sets their bullshit detector off.

Tl;dr, fibromyalgia might as well be called "idk lol" so I don't think I could categorize cases as "legit" or not, but if you were to ask how many are cases of psychosomatic pain/mental health issues/learned helplessness, I'd guess 80%.

 

[DrJonesHat]

Once when I quit a job (with notice, mind you), I got a call from the HR person about a month later demanding to know why I hadn't been at work in a month. My response was less than professional, something along the lines of "do you fucking idiots not talk to each other?!"

 

[PT 940]

Once when I quit a job (with notice, mind you), I got a call from the HR person about a month later demanding to know why I hadn't been at work in a month. My response was less than professional, something along the lines of "do you fucking idiots not talk to each other?!"

That's messed up. Was the tone of the HR rep that they wanted you to still come back to work after not working for a month?

 

[Coccxys]

Ok another couple of stories from the world of British policing (no Muslim rape this time). The Jussie hoax reminded me of these.

Spoiler: don't lie to the police

I attended a crash involving an uninsured driver with no lisence hitting a couple of other cars. Turned out to be his mother's car on the various checks. No injuries or anything so just the standard seize the car and had out a ticket for driving without insurance and a license.

Well it soon started spiralling. The woman who's car it was decided to ring me and screech down the phone about how dare I impound her car, that she wouldn't pay (the company who recover and store the cars charge the person to collect it) And that I had to get it back to her "or else".

Now this being a specatularily bad way to deal with the police I decided to call round and hand her her ticket for permitting an uninsured, unlicensed driver to drive her car (which I wasn't going to bother about until the phone call as she already had an impound to pay).

Now this was a shitty council estate and these were standard council estate trash. Her response to the ticket was "he didn't have my permission" so I asked to clarify if she was saying he stole the car and she said yes so I went upstairs and arrested her son for stealing a car. She didn't even object to me doing so.

During interviewing her son for the "theft" he showed me the text messages where he had asked to borrow it and she'd said yes plus that it wasn't a one off. So I downloaded the info off his phone and put it all on the system.

Then I went back to the mother's house, not telling her what evidence I had, and told her I needed a statement to proceed with the theft. She sat there telling me this whole nonsense story about him stealing the car (including forcibly taking the keys from her, so now a robbery).

At the end I asked "are you sure that is what happened?", She was insistent so I handed her the statement to sign and said "are you 100% certain that you want to sign that as the truth", again she insisted yes and signed it. I then put the statement away and proceeded to arrest her for attempting to pervert the course of Justice and off we went to the cells.

The son was released and paid his tickets. The mother however ended up with 6 weeks inside and some community service. The car was cubed as they never collected it.

It was amazing how willing to set her son up she was to avoid £150 in towing fees. He wasn't all that against proving her to be a lier in the interview and court as a prosecution witness though so no honor among fake thieves I suppose.

Spoiler: don't commit crimes near lawyer's houses

I arrested some guy who was walking down the road in a wealthy neighborhood smashing the wing mirrors off cars with a bat. Standard bullshit basically.

When we got to court he had a public defence lawyer. Now not a lot of people know it but the cops and the public defense lawyers tend to know eachother well as there are only so many in an area and work on multiple cases "against" eachother so develop a professional relationship at least.

The lawyer he got was notoriously tough, he pulled your shit apart for anything procedural or destroyed you in cross examination so I doubly made sure everything was perfect. Come the big day I give my evidence to the court and the defence lawyer stands up.

First question was "are you sure you saw my client breaking the mirrors off the cars", now this was a favourite of his, plant enough doubt in the officer's mind with repeated questioning along those lines to make you seem unsure to the court since I was the only witness. I answered "yes" and he said "no further questions" and sat down which shocked me as I was expecting an uncomfortable grilling.

The guy was found guilty and given some pathetic sentence that is not a deterrent in the slightest as our courts love to do. The next time I saw the lawyer I asked how come he'd given me such an easy time. He just said "that was my street that bastard was smashing cars on".

 

[Ginger Piglet]

Ok another couple of stories from the world of British policing (no Muslim rape this time). The Jussie hoax reminded me of these.

Spoiler: don't lie to the police

I attended a crash involving an uninsured driver with no lisence hitting a couple of other cars. Turned out to be his mother's car on the various checks. No injuries or anything so just the standard seize the car and had out a ticket for driving without insurance and a license.

Well it soon started spiralling. The woman who's car it was decided to ring me and screech down the phone about how dare I impound her car, that she wouldn't pay (the company who recover and store the cars charge the person to collect it) And that I had to get it back to her "or else".

Now this being a specatularily bad way to deal with the police I decided to call round and hand her her ticket for permitting an uninsured, unlicensed driver to drive her car (which I wasn't going to bother about until the phone call as she already had an impound to pay).

Now this was a shitty council estate and these were standard council estate trash. Her response to the ticket was "he didn't have my permission" so I asked to clarify if she was saying he stole the car and she said yes so I went upstairs and arrested her son for stealing a car. She didn't even object to me doing so.

During interviewing her son for the "theft" he showed me the text messages where he had asked to borrow it and she'd said yes plus that it wasn't a one off. So I downloaded the info off his phone and put it all on the system.

Then I went back to the mother's house, not telling her what evidence I had, and told her I needed a statement to proceed with the theft. She sat there telling me this whole nonsense story about him stealing the car (including forcibly taking the keys from her, so now a robbery).

At the end I asked "are you sure that is what happened?", She was insistent so I handed her the statement to sign and said "are you 100% certain that you want to sign that as the truth", again she insisted yes and signed it. I then put the statement away and proceeded to arrest her for attempting to pervert the course of Justice and off we went to the cells.

The son was released and paid his tickets. The mother however ended up with 6 weeks inside and some community service. The car was cubed as they never collected it.

It was amazing how willing to set her son up she was to avoid £150 in towing fees. He wasn't all that against proving her to be a lier in the interview and court as a prosecution witness though so no honor among fake thieves I suppose.

Spoiler: don't commit crimes near lawyer's houses

I arrested some guy who was walking down the road in a wealthy neighborhood smashing the wing mirrors off cars with a bat. Standard bullshit basically.

When we got to court he had a public defence lawyer. Now not a lot of people know it but the cops and the public defense lawyers tend to know eachother well as there are only so many in an area and work on multiple cases "against" eachother so develop a professional relationship at least.

The lawyer he got was notoriously tough, he pulled your shit apart for anything procedural or destroyed you in cross examination so I doubly made sure everything was perfect. Come the big day I give my evidence to the court and the defence lawyer stands up.

First question was "are you sure you saw my client breaking the mirrors off the cars", now this was a favourite of his, plant enough doubt in the officer's mind with repeated questioning along those lines to make you seem unsure to the court since I was the only witness. I answered "yes" and he said "no further questions" and sat down which shocked me as I was expecting an uncomfortable grilling.

The guy was found guilty and given some pathetic sentence that is not a deterrent in the slightest as our courts love to do. The next time I saw the lawyer I asked how come he'd given me such an easy time. He just said "that was my street that bastard was smashing cars on".

My early days in legal aid caused it to be my lot in life to preserve the tenancy of a young and chronically unemployed gentleman in severe rent arrears. It had already been to court four times beforehand and eviction was stayed on various promises to pay which were adhered to and then forgotten about. The arrears were increasing apace.

So, I start to get to the bottom of why he was not able to pay. He was on a tugboat and kept getting sanctioned (his tugboat suspended) for failing to attend the Job Centre to sign on because "he forgot."

He really was in the last chance saloon but we had legal aid and we could mount an argument that he was about to clear the arrears as he was owed a substantial sum from someone else. Still, it was not certain.

At 5.25 pm the day before the hearing, my colleague put his head round the door.

"Young Piglet," said he. Are you representing this chap tomorrow?"

I say I am.

Turns out he'd just been arrested for robbing at knife point a pizza delivery driver. For the pizza he'd just ordered. And the next day he was due in the Magistrate's Court to be charged. Which meant he missed his County Court hearing over his home.

Amazingly, it SAVED HIS BACON. Why? Because the District Judge didn't think it would be reasonable to go ahead without hearing evidence from him personally and adjourned it.

At the adjourned hearing, he'd been able to pay off his arrears and the eviction was cancelled.

High risk 4D chess strategy that paid off? No, just a scrote getting lucky.