youve court to be kidding!

Many moons ago...well, due to all the related misfortunes to befall my friend since, it seems that length of time...a greasy, pointy nosed, unbelievably thick individual thought he'd try his luck with the light fingered variety of retail therapy.
Plonking his mits on a powertool, he bypassed the checkouts in the store I work and made for the exit but, before long, two colleagues were in close pursuit. While the police were kept up to date, the dimwit was eventually tracked down and, various 'not guilty' pleas, identity parades and small hearings later, the case came to court.
A friend of mine who gave chase to this lowlife, was also expected to attend, as a witness. Bearing in mind she has heard little from the authorities concerned and when she has it has involved threats of her arrest when the last date clashed with her holiday, it's fair to say she's been mucked around a bit.
So here we were, sitting in a cardboard sized waiting room, her attempting to look her dignified best in a dress suit whilst tugging at her socks, battling with a regularly self unfixing button accessory on her skirt and burping, plonked in wait of some progress.
And wait we did. It was soon that we were reduced to digging through handbags for scraps of chocolate and flicking through 3 year old magazines in desperate hope of an entertaining problem page (you know the ones...'I've fallen in love with my husband's murderer but a genie brought my husband back to life so I'm in a dilemma...I asked my cousin for advice and ended up in a threesome with him and his friend, who gives my son drugs in return for a hand job')
Eventually, an official looking woman wandered in and eventually, after significant amounts of faffing and destruction of her official look by pulling coffee and milk out of her briefcase, revealed herself as a witness advisory type person, who had travelled a distance to be here. After a copious amount of fondling with a television which had no aerial in the vain hope of getting a picture (why I don't know because we had already done the waiting thing...or so we thought) , she got down to business and went through the rigmoral of telling my friend what she could expect to happen in the witness box.
Next, we were visited by a police officer with eyes wider than Jade Goody's gob, and he informed us that the other colleague who was down to witness had fallen ill...and his evidence was valued. By the time the prosecution had had their say to my friend, it became obvious that the defendant was still yet to turn up. Predictably, he had pulled a 'no show' act, thus sending the case into an adjournment status. Once discussions for re-sheduling were underway, the lad turned up, an hour late, protesting that his taxi was late and walked smack bang into my friend who was due to give evidence against him.
Apparantely, because the adjournment had already been decided, it was irreversible. So, right in front of the thief, the next case was put down for a month's time, despite the fact that the magistrates couldn't possibly have had time to vacate the building.
The day couldn't have been more farcical if it tried.
Well that's a lie, the shopkeeper could have refused to give us change for the parking meter. Thank god SOME problems are simple to overcome!

Read a more entertaining account of this very same debacle HERE