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A 72-year-old man has been jailed in the UK for selling mince pies during lockdown.

He may have done the wrong thing, but I’m hoping he doesn’t spend too long in custardy.

Dobbers

Neighbours reported Maurice Snelling to police in December 2020 when they saw people with questionable appetites gathering at his shooting club.

Cloudside Shooting Grounds, where mince pies were sold during a Covid-19 lockdown.

At that time, Snelling’s local district was under tier three Covid restrictions, meaning food could only be served as takeaway.

But Snelling was allowing people to have a glass of wine and a mince pie on site.

If only he had been holding mince pie parties at Number 10 Downing Street, rather than at his humble club in Staffordshire, he would have been fine! But I digress.

Erasing Evidence

If Snelling had been in Victoria, Australia, police would have beaten him with sticks and buried him at the bottom of the ocean wrapped in N95 face masks with a mRNA syringe in his neck, just to teach him a lesson.

But Staffordshire coppers were more circumspect.

When police — alerted by neighbours who had sniffed out the mince pie superspreader event — asked Snelling for CCTV footage of his club, the old man asked the CCTV contractor to remove the footage from the hard drive.

Naughty.

The contractor reported Snelling’s request to the police. So now Snelling was in trouble for serving party pies and for attempting to erase all evidence of said party pies.

Half a Year in Gaol

Snelling told the court he believed his premises was part of Cheshire, which was subject to tier two restrictions, allowing food to be eaten on site.

He pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and was sentenced on Tuesday to six months in prison.

He could have molested a child at the event and got less time. Oh wait, no, that’s only if he’d been of a certain ethnicity and offering mince pies to kiddies in the cop shop at Rotherham.

If only he had made mince pies for ISIS, he would have received free housing.

Judge Fletcher said the Snelling’s mince pie munching and CCTV fiddling “strikes at the heart of justice”.

I say eating mince pies — rather than, say, steak and mushroom pies — strikes at the heart of bad taste. But that’s just me.

The judge said: “[Snelling] is anti-establishment, especially to the police. He doesn’t like being told what to do. He treated police with resentment.”

Whoa. Old man has bad attitude toward pie-hating police.

Bring back hanging!

I wonder how many police have been jailed for having a bad attitude toward the public during lockdown?

Nevertheless, the British justice system has ensured this menace is behind bars and the English are once again able to walk the streets free from mince pie oppression.

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Originally published at The James Macpherson Report.

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Photo by Craig Dennis.