wmlro.com: handling stolen goods? Not me, I'm armless.
John Smith from North London sat in a car outside a jeweller's shop as his mates broke in. Then, with the police in hot pursuit, he drove some 30 miles, say prosecutors, before crashing the car. That's the only part of this story that makes sense.
The jeweller's shop is in Rainham in Essex - actually in East London. And the crash was at the Blackwall Tunnel - also in East London. There's a road, the A13, from Rainham to the tunnel. It's a dual carriageway - and it's only about five miles.
So quite where Jones went for a 30 mile drive is a mystery.
So is the fact that he managed to get up the Ford Focus that he was driving up to 100MPH. First, that's pretty much top speed for Focus other than a sports model; secondly, where in London can you ever manage to do 100 MPH? This writer drove that road just a few weeks ago and it took an hour to do just over a mile near the Blackwall Tunnel. And, incidentally, a few days earlier, it had taken a similar time to do a similar distance near the south end of the tunnel.
But all of these things are as nothing compared to the fact that the 18 year old has no forearms. He has strap-on arms but he wasn't wearing them.
Jones is not the world's most capable person: his mother has to dress him. So the idea of him driving the car is bizarre. Even worse: it was a manual transmission - police say that they saw his friends leaning over to change gear.
His defence was that he could not read and write properly and therefore did not know that he was guilty of burglary by reason of being in the car.
Jones has been sentenced to 12 months' youth custody - suspended for two years. He must wear an electronic tag - and he's been grounded for six months.
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