They've caught the bastard

I received a letter over the weekend from Her Majesty's West Yorkshire Police Force informing me that they had caught and charged the scrote who burgled my house in December 2004, well done to them.

Let me at this point state that I am very pro-police, I have family members who are serving officers and the friend that we go on our summer holiday with is a serving officer, so I have an insight into what goes on behind the closed interview room doors.

Obviously what has happened in this case is that the suspect was suspected all along and they've just been waiting for him to make a big mistake (instead of the small mistakes he made at our burglary) so that they could nail him then get him to admit to (probably) hundreds of other offences.

Still, it was nice to get the letter, the police are much more communitative these days, especially as they are always having to justify their council tax inspired budgets.

In my case the lowlife had peeked in the kitchen window, seen my wallet and mobile phone on the worktop and kicked the kitchen door in to snatch the two items, a not inconsiderable feat as its a steel framed upvc door with five locking points and two internal bolts - it just burst open - the attending police officers were most impressed and not to keen to go out seeking the superhuman person who had achieved this.

We of course were in bed when this happened, three loud bangs on the door was what we heard and by the time I'd tip-toed downstairs and searched the rooms before finding the knackered back door wide open, the scrote had long gone. jake the Golden Retreiver was sleeping in the kitchen that night but of course he doesn't bark and so I found him stood at the back door staring out with a "what the fuck was that" expression on his face.

The police got lots of evidence, a big shoe print on the pvc door which they could identify without even sending to a lab, we got the phone records and found that he'd used his own phone to ring mine, presumably to see if it worked, then used my phone to ring for a taxi to take him home to Becketts Park, and we found from one of my Switch cards that he'd called at a local garage and used the card to buy cigarettes and £20 cashback, the garage provided their own cctv evidence to the police - it was all pretty conclusive really.

And that was the sum total of it until this weekend, I wonder how quickly I could become a magistrate and if so would they let me apply the death penalty ?