Making himself at home: Shane Sims enjoys a cuppa with his 'hosts' Robert and Brenda Cole
Posted on 12/19/2007 12:37:58 PM PST by Stoat
A convicted criminal has moved in with a married couple against their wishes after giving their address in court as his home.
Shane Sims, 19, has spent the last few days living with Brenda and Robert Cole after he was sentenced to a week's curfew for breaching a supervision order.
But the couple claim the first they knew about it was when Sims, a friend of their daughter, moved in on Thursday - followed by security contractors who put a box in a bedroom to monitor his movements with an ankle tag.
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Making himself at home: Shane Sims enjoys a cuppa with his 'hosts' Robert and Brenda Cole
Sims' tag keeps him indoors between 7pm and 7am much to the horror of the Coles, who both have learning difficulties.
Mrs Cole, 47, said: "It's turned our lives upside down.
"He's taken over the whole place. He sprawls across the sofa and he's always in the bathroom when you need it.
"It's an absolute disgrace. They've let a criminal come into our home and there is nothing we can do about it.
"How can he get away with giving false details? Can crooks pick anywhere they like and just move in? Who needs to break into a house when the courts will do it all for you?
"When the men turned up and installed the tag box, I thought it was some kind of a joke. I told them there had been a mistake but they just said it wasn't their problem."
Sims appeared before magistrates last Thursday where he admitted breaching a two-year supervision order imposed for assault.
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Comfy: Convicted criminal Shane Sims puts his feet up
He gave the Coles' Bristol address as his bail address but the Probation Service did not verify it.
Sims claims he was told he could stay by the Coles' 16-year-old daughter Tanya after he fell out with his father.
He allegedly told Mrs Cole: "I'm staying here until the tag's off. There's f**k all you can do about it. The courts have told me to."
The court said it was looking into the situation but police said they could not act without a court warrant.
Sims said: "I said 'I'll be gone before Christmas' and I will be. I can't see what the problem is. They keep changing their minds. I don't even want to be here."
A spokeswoman for South Gloucestershire Council, whose social workers care for Mr and Mrs Cole, said: "We are seeking legal advice and doing all we can to resolve the situation."
I’d unplug the monitor box, and tell the cops to run their own electric and phone lines to it. Then while the dude was out during the day, I’d change the locks. If the daughter lets him in, I’d change them again while they both were out.
The lakes not cold enough.
So now the UK has gone from encouraging people to give birth at home to free up hospital space and liability to forcing people to host unrelated criminals.
Socialism is wonderful.
I was thinking Buckingham Palace....
Just another loser in the home of losers. Often times filled with 38,000 other losers.
sorry officer... he attacked my wife so i had to kill the worthless POS!!!
Good points, both of you. Britain needs a few hundred Sheriff Joe Arpaios! (The U.S. could use more, too.)
Or 5801 W. Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles (the La Brea Tar Pits).
something wrong here with all the posed shots of the various participants. I do not believe the substance of the story.
The Quartering Act was one of the reasons we threw the British out. It is painful to see that they haven't learned from the experience.
What sort of photos would have provided more believability for you? If there were shots of all parties beating each other bloody, it would have been terribly easy to call those photos "staged" as well.
At the moment this story is being carried by a number of UK papers in addition to the Daily Mail
'Tagged criminal moved into our house' - Mirror.co.uk
24dash.com v2 beta » News » Local Government » Couple 'forced to live' with criminal lodger
News Crime JPs 'let a thug live with us' The Sun HomePageNews
Married couple forced to house criminal Metro.co.uk
BBC NEWS UK England Bristol-Somerset Loophole leads to unwanted guest
“What sort of photos would have provided more believability for you? “
Perhaps something a bit less staged.
Hypothetical question - if the above house is yours, and I am the parolee living in your house under government compulsion, will you pose in your living room with me for the media to take pictures of us all drinking coffee, as above? Look at the picture above and tell me you would take that pose.
That photo is staged, and staged in a way adversarial parties wouldn’t agree to do.
All the tabloid media can carry this story, but the staged photos tell me there is more (or less) going on that is being said, one way or another. It could be as simple as the girl’s parents having agreed to let him stay but then decided (or others decided) to attempt to get some publicity by misrepresenting matters.
Call me terribly cynical, but I believe print stories about non-public persons are 90% fabrication. Stuff like this sells papers, after all....
Considering that the homeowners are at the end of their rope, having had no luck with trying to reason with the various Government entities involved and having themselves contacted the media in order to try to get the matter dealt with, yes I would sit down for pictures for them. There is nothing left for them to do in their efforts to gain relief from this mess.
None of them took too happy. They all look as though they would much rather be somewhere else rather than in this situation, but are sitting for the photo because that gives the story a human element. It wouldn't have been much of a story without photos.
All the tabloid media can carry this story,
I knew that the "tabloid" moniker would come up, which is why I included such story links as the BBC and This Is London; news sites that I haven't heard as being labeled "tabloid" ......yet :-)
Stuff like this sells papers, after all....
And sometimes Socialist Government agencies do indeed make awful mistakes and leave people with no recourse other than to contact the press.
Oh no problem. I’d tell him “you’re welcome to stay here as long as you wish......as long as you can endure hourly ass-kickings from me; deal?”.
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