Letter - Editor should be charged

Editor should be charged

I READ with astonishment last week’s Mercury report “Men’s magazine owns up to stealing scarecrow Nancy”.

If I were spotted helping myself to the sign outside Barnard Castle Police Station; indeed, if I were to stroll into the station and steal some item; then I would be arrested and charged.

However, if I told the officer who tracked me down that I didn’t intend to keep it, it seems Sgt Bill Dutton would say “That’s alright then, we won’t take any further action”.
Would he? Of course he wouldn’t.
The police force’s apparent decision in this case is surely a neglect of duty on the their part.
If a couple of local youths had been seen doing what these ‘journalists’ did, we’d all have been up in arms decrying ‘teenage vandals!’.
So why should the loutish lads from Loaded be allowed to break the law with such impunity?
And their smug editor, Martin Daubney, smirks and patronises us all by making out he was doing a public service for “Nancy and the people up there” i.e. us yokels up North.
And he generously promises to donate £200 to Middleton Carnival, which – if he actually gets round to paying it – is a real bargain for him, in terms of getting precious publicity for his puerile ladzine.
I can see no justification whatever for the police not charging these two thieves, and their editor for aiding and abetting, and all three for conspiracy to steal. And for wasting police time too, in the work that was obviously required in tracking them down.
So what about it, Sgt Dutton?