Every so often in the media game, a story drops by your desk that’s so utterly wonderful in every way that you can’t really help but sit in awe of it.
The kind of story that starts out amazing, and only manages to surprise and elate you at every turn.
This is exactly that story.
A 62-year-old English gentleman by the name of Simon Chaplin appeared in Swansea Crown Court on a raft of charges, stemming from an incident which saw him involved in a police car chase.
It should be pointed out at this juncture that police cars are always top-line, high-powered models that are capable of keeping up with high-performance vehicles in the event that a speedy chase is required.
Chaplin drives a Peugeot 309. Which is not that.
However, he still managed to lead PC Dafydd Campbell Birch on a five mile chase.
Because Chaplin’s sloppy jalopy just so happened to bit fitted with a smoke screen.
With a flick of a switch, Chaplin’s car began emitting “a vast amount of dense smoke,” and he was able to slow down Birch’s police car.
“There was a vast amount of dense smoke coming out the back. It completely obscured the road. I had to slow down and keep a distance. I knew when he had turned left only by following the smoke he left behind.”
“At times I came to an almost complete stop because of the smoke. I had to look across the top of the hedgerows to see where he had gone.”“For a while I could not see the car but in the distance I could see the smoke going up a hill towards the village of Crundale.”“I caught up with him but the smoke kept coming thick and fast.”
Chaplin’s smoke screen device was a homemade job that involved a tank of diesel behind the passenger seat, which was connected to a pump with a pipe leading to the exhaust. A switch on his dashboard activated the device, which would drip diesel down into the hot exhaust pipe, causing massive plumes of smoke.
Birch was initially keen to pull Chaplin over because his car sported a license plate that read “DE JURE” which, according to Birch, “did not look right.”
When he finally caught up to Chaplin, the 62-year-old surrendered with a replica 9mm Beretta handgun – though on the charge of possessing an imitation firearm in a public place, he was cleared.
During the hearing, Chaplin explained that the smoke device’s intended purpose was to get rid of moles.
JUST TO BLOODY RECAP ALL OF THIS.
- Dude owns an absolute bomb of a car.
- Rigs it with a container of diesel and makes a smoke machine out of the exhaust purely to get rid of pesky underground moles.
- Cop spots the car, spies the “DE JURE” license plate it’s rocking, and decides that ain’t right.
- Dude doesn’t want a bar of the cop, and turns on the smoke to try and get away.
- The smoke works in slowing the cop down, but THE TRAIL OF SMOKE HE LEAVES makes him easily trackable.
- Dude eventually gets caught – with an actual gun.
- Dude goes to court and gets CLEARED OF HAVING AN ACTUAL GUN.
I mean, I know what he did was against the law and such. But if there’s not a FULL LEDGE trophy headed his way soon, then the world clearly needs to lighten the fuck up. And quick.
Source: The Telegraph.
