Ticket Tout Eats Pile Of Fake £20 Notes After Being Caught Out
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Written by Elliott Batte
A ticket tout who’s worked scammed hard enough can afford to have a decent meal out every once in awhile, but we’re sure 41 year-old Ian Staines won’t be eating a meal quite like he did earlier this year - after he scoffed a wad of fake £20 notes!
Literally putting his money where his mouth is, Staines noshed the dosh after being challenged by staff at a Tesco supermarket in Great Harwood - and he almost managed to finish the whole lot, apart from Tesco employee Dwayne Wilson pulling out half of a note from his mouth.
Staines, a prolific and well-known football ticket tout, was spared jail after being arrested for the crime, though he faces a 12 week suspended sentence, a 12 week 6pm curfew, and six month’s supervision.
The scammer had attempted to pay for a soft drink with a counterfeit £20, which Wilson immediately suspected as being fake. When he left his post to ask another member of staff their opinion on it’s validity, they’d found that Staines had walked off.
After a guard went to find him and take him to the office, Staines tried his best to resist - even getting violent - but was eventually taken inside. It was then that he tried to munch down the money, which came in the form of ‘four or five £20 notes’.
The Blackburn Citizen states that prosecutor Roger Baldwin told the court: “The defendant pulled four or five notes out, put them in his mouth and tried to eat it. He was successful in ingesting some of the notes. Mr Wilson grabbed at them to pull them out of his mouth and was left with half a note.”
Staines initially denied that he knew that the £20s were counterfeit, but later admitted that he was ‘concerned’ by the notes, and tried to spend them. You may think that Staines is just a little bit dull, and even Clare Thomas - defending Staines - agrees.
She told the court: “It appears that underpinning all his offending is a lack of thinking skills.”
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