June’s Loser of the Month

June’s Candidates for Loser of the Month

• Man uses Petrol as Cleaner
• Pants on Fire
• World Cup thief’s own goal
• Pickpocket – Picks wrong
  target
• Robbery
  Leaves Nasty Stink
• Some people are winners AND thieves:

First runner in our ‘Loser of the Month’ competition

Man uses Petrol as Cleaner

A man blew up his house as he washed his kitchen floor with a cleaning fluid mixed with petrol. The fumes were ignited by the boiler in his living room.

The blast blew out the bay window and wrecked
ceilings and walls in Ron Cox’s
home. He had been using Cillit Bang to get glue off his kitchen floor tiles, but he found it such hard work he thought petrol would help. As the fumes wafted through the house
there was an explosion as they came into contact with the pilot light on the gas boiler. Newspapers reported that Mr Cox said, ‘I didn’t
realise what had happened at first. I couldn’t
believe the damage. It was
just a cupful. Lucky I was in the kitchen and no one else was in the house.’

He has now moved out of the house in Scunthorpe, Lincs, while it is repaired. His neighbour, Dave, told the reporter, ‘We heard an
almighty bang. I rushed round and found Ron shocked but unhurt.’
Dave put out a fire in the lounge and dialled 999

Humberside fire chief Stuart Spence said: ‘Ron is very lucky. Nobody should ever try to use
petrol as a cleaner.’

Pants on Fire

An angry husband who threw old clothes into the garden and set fire to them because he couldn’t find any clean underpants accidentally burnt his home down. Ivo Jerbic, 55, from Prikraj,
near Zagreb, Croatia, told police he had lost his temper after failing to find any clean underpants in a cupboard full of old clothes. He had thrown them all in the garden and set fire to them. He told police,
‘My wife never throws anything out, I just lost my temper.’ The fire spread to the house which burned to the ground.

Croatian news agency Hina reports that Jerbic could end up in jail for up to eight
years for putting other family members in danger, even though no one was injured.

World Cup thief’s
own goal

A thief who stole a World Cup ticket from a woman’s
handbag was caught after sitting down to watch the game next to his victim’s
husband.

The 34-year-old mugged Eva Standmann, 42, as she made her
way to the Munich stadium for the Brazil-Australia game at the weekend and discovered the ticket in her bag. He took the woman’s
place in the stadium where he was met by her husband Berndt, 43, who immediately
called security. A Munich police spokesman said, ‘The thief found the ticket in the bag and decided to watch the game, not expecting to sit next to his victim’s
husband, who immediately informed officers on
duty at the stadium.’

Pickpocket – Picks wrong target

Kenneth Cooper may count himself the most unfortunate loser of the month.

His victim was Bridget Prentice, a small middle-aged woman.  She must
have looked an easy target in the hurly-burly of a bus queue.   What
Cooper did not know was that a detective was standing right behind Ms Prentice.
Furthermore, the victim is none other than the MP for Lewisham East and a junior
minister in the Justice Ministry.  Ms Prentice shouted, ‘He’s nicked my
purse,’ and her ‘knight in shining armour’, turned out to be a off-duty
detective sergeant.

Just when Cooper thought things could not get worse, he ran straight into a
busload of police officers who just happened to be on a ‘safer neighbourhood’
crime prevention exercise.  Cooper tried valiantly to escape into a
shopping arcade, but the police alerted the center’s security guards.

It was an uneven contest. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said: ‘The
man was detained and the purse recovered.  ‘It was fortunate that the thief
ran past a busload of police and he was caught so quickly.’

In March 2008 the case came before Judge Michael Kelly at Greenwich
Magistrates’ Court.  Kenneth Cooper, of Kennington, London, pleaded guilty
to theft.   He also gets Will and Guy’s award of loser of the month.

As for the victim, she admitted some responsibility for the incident because
she left bag wide open.  Colin Finch who is the Lewisham Victim Support
manager, said that petty crime was common on buses and that the victims were
usually older women. ‘The way this incident happened is pretty typical and
Bridget, like other victims of crime, shouldn’t blame herself.’

Loser of The Month
– Robbery Leaves Nasty Stink

A female robber, in the town of Hinterbruehl, Austria, attempted to rob a
bank using a stink bomb as her weapon of choice.

She claimed that the box she
was carrying held an explosive device. As she banged it down on the bank counter
to emphasise her point and demand money, the glass containers smashed and the
bank was filled with an evil, olid stench. The woman immediately turned tail and
ran out of the building overcome by the aroma she had released; she was quickly
followed by the bank staff who also wanted to get away from the smell.

Footnote:
Please send us your candidates for Loser of the Month

Some people are winners AND thieves:

Bank customers cashed in after bungling staff put £20 notes [$40USD] in a cashpoint [ATM] instead of tenners. Staff described the queue outside Lloyds TSB in
Grays, Essex, UK, as ‘a feeding frenzy’. One commented, ‘People were ringing up friends to come down.’

A sign asking customers not to use it was torn down. After forty-five minutes staff turned off the
ATM, reports the Mirror

• More clean jokes for June