Big fine: It’s one thing to get a parking ticket or two, but it is quite another to rack up a huge amount in fines over a period of a year and then ignore the consequences. That is exactly what the owner of an older model Peugeot in Portsmouth, Hampshire in England has done. The unknown owner owes £18,000 (about $27,200 US) for the 220 parking tickets that have been handed out. The owner has not paid the fines, nor contacted authorities to take responsibility, so the Portsmouth City Council took the unusual step of impounding the Peugeot. The Council intends to pursue the owner so the hefty fine can be collected.
Botched getaway: A story from the small town of Juan de Acosta near the Caribbean coast of Colombia offers a lesson to would-be thieves. If you’re going to use a getaway vehicle, make sure it doesn’t bray. Apparently, three bandits used a stolen donkey to carry loot taken from a small grocery store. However, the donkey started making too much noise and the police came running. The thieves took off, but the donkey was safely reunited with its owner, and the stolen rice, rum and canned goods were returned to the store.
Try again: Two thieves in the town of Beaudesert in Queensland, Australia, struck out on three different occasions in their attempt to rob a jewelry store. The first time, they tried to break a window, but that failed. Next, they picked the lock on the back door of the wrong business and ended up in an animal welfare headquarters where they stole a small amount of money from a donation box. For the third attempt, the thieves entered a washroom area and smashed a hole in the wall using an iron bar. This time, they ended up in an adjoining fried chicken restaurant. The cops finally caught up with them, charging them with armed robbery.
Wrong apartment: A woman from South Bend, Indiana (US) got the shock of her life when she came home from the bingo parlor to find a strange man in her apartment. Ashley Murray was initially frightened, but soon realized that there was something odd about the situation. The man had cooked some chicken and onions, folded her laundry and washed her floor. Murray called the police, who had trouble convincing the man to get up off a chair to go to the station. It appeared that the man actually thought he was in his own apartment. He may end up with a charge of breaking and entering.