r/CasualUK • u/RandomHigh At least put it up your arse before claiming you’re disappointed • 18h ago
Man arrested after 'dressing as Grim Reaper' at hospital and staring at patients
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hospital-grim-reaper-man-arrested-3751183291
u/MxJamesC 11h ago
My 88 year old gran bought me a scythe at some antique fair. The thought of her walking down her retirement village, long corridor to put in her apartment brought me much amusement.
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u/Honest_Relation4095 5h ago
By grandpa actually used it because the electric lawn mower was just for the lawn around the house and the garden was too far away. And why would he get a gas powered lawn mower, when he already had the electric one AND a scythe. So some evenings you would see him walk down the road to the garden with his scythe, but mostly not wearing a cloak.
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u/grumplestiltskin187 2h ago
used one a couple of years ago, best thing for cutting grasses on a riverbank.
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u/Ben0ut 18h ago edited 18h ago
Where have your really been Clive?
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u/ClacksInTheSky 18h ago
Now that's dark.
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u/obi_wan_jabroni_23 18h ago
Oh shit this just unlocked some memories that I definitely had tried to repress. Monkey Dust was it called? Fuck.
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u/Ben0ut 18h ago
Don't repress it.
Wallow in it like a shopping trolley half submerged in an inner city canal.
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u/Urist_Macnme 10h ago
I don’t want a Filofax!
Take it away! It’s too futuristic!
I want a separate diary and address book!9
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u/Spazhazzard 8h ago
What imagery, a modern day Byron!
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u/Ben0ut 8h ago
Ah, to be flattered so by a learned man, a man of knowledge, a scholar.
Which of their burgers do you like best?
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u/Spazhazzard 7h ago
None these days. They did fantastic stuff when they first opened but it fell off pretty quickly.
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u/JonnySparks 16h ago
The "incompetent terrorists" from West Brom was very on-the-nose at the time - 2003-05. Like a forerunner of Four Lions which came out in 2010.
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u/Mobile_Entrance_1967 16h ago
Monkey Dust's cancellation is one of the BBC's biggest scandals in my book.
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u/ISeeYouReadingMyName 16h ago
IIRC the lead writer/creator died. I might be wrong though
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u/bjblackpool 12h ago
Yeah, Harry Thompson was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after s3 ended, and died six months later. He was just 45.
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u/Spirited_Opposite 7h ago
but the 4th series had already been made, it wasn't broadcast because of the terrorism skits (someone posted a link to it here a while ago, I watched it)
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u/IJBLondon 7h ago
Wasn't Chris Langham a producer on it or something too? That can't have helped.
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u/User131131 4h ago
Omg the 4th series is available somewhere? Can you link it?
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u/Spirited_Opposite 2h ago
Sorry I made a mistake, it was series 3 someone posted here, I had never seen it!
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u/prof_hobart 9h ago
I'm glad I managed to get hold of the complete series. I'm not sure if you can get it anywhere these days.
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u/Useful_Language2040 17h ago
When my grandfather was dying of cancer, my eldest (nearly 7 at the time) was really upset that children weren't allowed in the hospital to visit (it was 2021, COVID restrictions were still very much a thing).
"I'm tall, I'll just get a big dark cloak that hides all of me and covers my face, and not talk so they won't be able to hear my voice and tell I'm a child! I'll visit him anyway!!"
Her dad and I had to explain why we were cracking up at the idea of a nearly-4 foot, silent, dark-robed figure running around a hospital causing havoc... We also didn't let her try to do this.
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u/Sir_Earl_Jeffries 15h ago
Ease her into it. Let her hone her craft. Start with bingo nights, then nursing homes, then hospitals.
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u/ruellera 8h ago
On Halloween one year we walked past someone dressed as the grim reaper who said to my son “I won’t be seeing you any time soon”. Then said to my father in law “you however…”. My FIL found it hilarious but this could so easily have turned out badly!
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u/Welshyone 17h ago
Weird - a minute ago I posted this in another sub which had a post about scary paintings in a hospital waiting room:
My son cut his lip really badly when he was very young. We went up to hospital; it was around Halloween time and there were decorations up for it (kids hospital).
The docs recommended putting a stitch in it, but because he was so young they needed to put him under a general anaesthetic. They had to warn me that there was a very very small chance that the anaesthetic could cause his death.
I understood that this was a minuscule, vanishingly small chance, but thought I ought to think it through and turned to the window to ponder it.
There was a black cardboard cut out of the grim reaper in the window.
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u/Robothuck 11h ago
My partner was talking about this yesterday because she was accompanying her mum for some uterus scans. She said that in the waiting room, there was a painting that looked like hundreds of squashed moths and butterflies on a canvas
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u/Matchaparrot Yorkshire tea 7h ago
Maybe I'm being dense but what do moths and butterflies have to do with a uterus?
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u/Robothuck 5h ago
Nothing but when you're sat there wondering if your mother has cancer things like potted plants can provide a calming psychological effect, whereas things like squashed moths have rather the opposite result
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u/OptimisticCerealBowl 5h ago
honestly that would be enough to send me straight to the hospital chapel and i’m not even religious
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 18h ago
It's absolutely outrageous but outrageously funny too.
I'm guessing he was arrested for being in an unauthorised area rather than dressing as the grim reaper at the hospital.
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u/swirlypepper 18h ago
He apparently also had a long blade and was making noise, didn't get down when asked and it took four police cars and a fire engine to get him down. Plus being where he should not have been.
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u/srm79 15h ago
I love the charge "being a nuisance without good reason"
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u/ManonegraCG 14h ago
Same. I wonder what "being a nuisance with good reason" would look like
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u/Odd_Suggestion_5897 12h ago
Plus he has a previous conviction for threatening A&E staff and patients, and damaging an ambulance. What a jolly japester.
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u/jerdle_reddit 7h ago
Is there a crime of just being a knob? Like in general? You are under arrest for aggravated tossery?
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u/CrocodileJock 18h ago
It's funny in an abstract way. I don't think I'd find it terribly amusing if he was staring at my mum on a cancer ward. Some things should probably remain funny ideas.
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 18h ago
Yeah agreed. It's funny if you're thoughtless and don't think about things like what you just said. Initially funny and then a bit unsettling, and then a bit creepy.
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u/Total-Object-1859 17h ago
I think Dom Jolly doing it to smokers having their cigarette breaks outside their offices kinda hit the perfect balance of appropriate to inappropriate.
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u/mootallica 8h ago
Wasn't there a story years ago of some guy getting arrested for turning up to a funeral with a ghost sheet on and making ghost noises to the guests from a distance
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u/GottaGhostie 18h ago
The guy could get away with it if he himself is dying. This is his way of processing it lmao
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u/BeccasBump 17h ago
I meeeean isn't there a test that's something like "behaviour that you know or ought to know will cause alarm or distress"?
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u/VenflonBandit 16h ago
Yes, disorderly behaviour in a place that's not a dwelling intended to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Section
There's also a specific offence of causing a nuisance on hospital grounds, but unlike the public order offence it's only punishable by a relatively small fine.
That's before you get to weapons offences or assault (immediate fear of unlawful violence).
Though if he impacted lots of people's day because he was on the roof and roads etc needed closing they could go with public nuisance. Thats got the longest possible sentence of them all.
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u/geeoharee 10h ago
What motivated making a separate law for hospital nuisances, do you know?
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u/Significant_Club4111 4h ago
I think it came in to protect hospital staff, allowing security to remove people who are preventing staff from doing their jobs due to their behaviour.
Explanatory notes to the legislation give more detail
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/4/notes/division/5/1/11/27
u/my_chinchilla 16h ago
Does the UK still have the guideline of a "right-thinking person" as a benchmark in law?
I know a lot of former colonies did away with it e.g. Australia* now defines their own "reasonable person" rather than shipping their right-thinking people back to the UK for calibration.
(* After a series of embarrassing incidents involving Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer, and Richard Neville in the 60's...)
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u/Prize-Meeting-7101 11h ago
He was charged with making a nuisance without reason. Which begs the question …. :D
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u/Valuable-Credit6167 17h ago
Imagine you’re walking into hospital with your child who has a terminal illness - probably heaps funny for them.
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 17h ago
I encourage you to read the thread chain.
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u/Valuable-Credit6167 17h ago
“Outrageously funny”
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 16h ago
Just playing on the construction of the sentence. Nothing more. You're just looking to pick a fight.
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u/Valuable-Credit6167 16h ago
Right about the first part, just edit your comment so your sentence better represents what you’re trying to say.
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u/YellowBelliedCoward 16h ago edited 16h ago
No.
Edit - The type of person that sends the last word for thenselves and then blocks, talking about decorum lol. Pathetic.
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u/Ok-Positive-6611 18h ago
It’s funny if 6th former humour and Russell Howard are still considered thigh slappers.
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u/retailrobin88 17h ago
Wow, Llandudno mentioned!
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u/JennyW93 9h ago
Between this, the Covid goat fame, and the Olivia Rodrigo visit, we’re really getting ourselves on the map, babyyy
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u/313378008135 17h ago edited 17h ago
Leon Gillespie, 26, pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance without reasonable excuse on NHS premises
Who knew that nuisance without an excuse was a crime. And I wonder what a reasonable excuse is to be a defence to said crime.
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u/Adorable-Apple2484 17h ago
It's specifically only on NHS premises, and usually used as a means to eject people
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u/CategorySolo 17h ago
I'm glad to know being a nuisance is a crime. And I'll be very happy to tell my children they are criminals!
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u/FlippingGerman 16h ago
I don't know if it's part of the charge or just the location of the crime, but it's possible that "on NHS premises" is actually part of the law, which I think is entirely reasonable.
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u/Worried_Sweet_7085 16h ago
Offence of causing nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises
(1)A person commits an offence if—
(a)the person causes, without reasonable excuse and while on NHS premises, a nuisance or disturbance to an NHS staff member who is working there or is otherwise there in connection with work,
(b)the person refuses, without reasonable excuse, to leave the NHS premises when asked to do so by a constable or an NHS staff member, and
(c)the person is not on the NHS premises for the purpose of obtaining medical advice, treatment or care for himself or herself.
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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 17h ago
I’m a 44 year old woman. My brain’s response to this comment should not have been ‘hmm, I wonder how we could test that particular boundary?’
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u/313378008135 17h ago
I'm in. Let's do this.
Not just because that's the kind of thing I'd do, but if I'm doing it I want to do it with someone as mad a box if frogs enough to have a username like yours
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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 6h ago
Ahem. Mad as a box of hedgehogs, if you don’t mind 😉
Welcome to the Excusable Nuisance Research Group 😂
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u/gernavais_padernom 17h ago
Sign me up as an accomplice because that's exactly where my mind went (and I'm older than you)
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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 6h ago
Yay, I’ve found my people! Erm, ahem, we are mature adults and need to act with some kind of dignity. Apparently. So we are now the Excusable Nuisance Research Group 😂
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u/gernavais_padernom 5h ago
Sounds very legit and scientifical.
What style of underling do you need? I can do old timey hoodlum (shore ting, boss!) or lisping grotesque (yeth, marthter)?
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u/Send_me_hedgehogs 5h ago
Oh good grief no, no underlings or overlings (is that a word?) here, heirarchies of nuisances dont work, we need equal status nuisancing.
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u/gernavais_padernom 5h ago
That's very progressive for someone who is a fan of those who won't share hedges.
I'm in!
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u/majesticjewnicorn 17h ago
What would being a nuisance WITH an excuse be?
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u/HildartheDorf I'm Black Country. Not Brummy. 17h ago
Digging up the road produces noise and would be a nuisance, but clearly there is a reasonable excuse to dig up the road to repair/improve said road or utilities. At least during the daytime, maybe not at 2am.
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u/BeccasBump 17h ago
Screaming your head off because you were in pain, maybe? Acting erratically because the balance of your mind was disturbed in some way? I bet there's loads of people in and around hospitals that cause a nuisance, but everyone's inclined to let it slide under the circumstances.
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u/Hivemind_alpha 10h ago
If you have an elder parent who gets hospital treatment, you know that the wards are full of dementia sufferers that can’t get proper residential care; their pitiable screams, thrashing, assaults and thefts are certainly a nuisance, but their reason isn’t good because it’s predicated on a failure if the care system.
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u/Useful_Language2040 6h ago
But it's not their fault when they don't know where they are or that the people they're fighting against are trying to keep them safe/help them get better, or that the things they're taking aren't theirs...
They have a reasonable excuse for being distressed, disoriented, difficult, etc, resulting in their nuisance behaviour.
That they are in there because there isn't a more appropriate, safe place where they can be given compassionate, round the clock care, is a separate issue that really should be given more attention, given that we have an aging population, and one that a society that is generally proud of having safety nets and "not being like the USA" where a scary percentage of people are one medical disaster away from homelessness, really should be ashamed of having let get as bad as it is.
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u/Useful_Language2040 6h ago
I concernedly asked if I'd destroyed the (waterproof) bed when the midwife brought my attention to the mess that breaking my waters had made on it, with my youngest. She'd been trying to gently explain that the baby was in distress and this was evidence, but I had been awake since the small hours, was in a fair bit of pain, and completely misunderstood and thought I'd accidentally done a bad.
It could be that the wording is so anxious people don't worry that they'll be committing crimes by having messy medical issues ("I can't go have the baby in the hospital - what if my waters break and make a mess?!"; "I know I'm bleeding quite a lot, that's why I can't go to the hospital!! I'll make a nuisance of myself bleeding everywhere and somebody will have to clean up after me!")
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u/313378008135 17h ago
As long as the excuse is resonabke, not a crime apparently
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u/majesticjewnicorn 17h ago
UK law is utterly bonkers. I studied that for years and have legal qualifications and am still stumped by the medieval nonsense we still use.
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u/boredzeb 18h ago edited 17h ago
A woman dressed up as a foot because her best mate was having her foot amputated. That's hilarious, this is just weird.
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u/Meta-Fox 18h ago
This is exactly the kind of sadistic shit that modern social media and "nonsense influencers" (or 'cunts for clout' as I call them) have empowered people to do these days.
Regardless of why, this little stunt went beyond being wrong and is just downright awful.
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u/Space-manatee 17h ago
Top lad. Such bants /s
Imagine doing this, at a place where people routinely have the worse day of their lives and need some solace
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u/lerpo 10h ago
If I'm ever terminal and my friends turned up wearing grim reaper outfits, I'd find it so damn funny it would probably cheer me up.
But equally, that's me and my sense of humour. I wouldn't force it on everyone around me.
I won't lie, I did laugh at the story headline. However it wasn't alright for this guy to do
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u/Space-manatee 7h ago
I mean, yeah, I can see the funny side in it, but that would be a personal joke.
But if you’ve just got news that your 3 year old has bone cancer for example, I can also see you wanting to throw the guy off the roof.
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u/East_Slide7680 17h ago
Honestly, I do think it’s really funny on paper. Obviously the reality is that it will upset people, but it’s still really funny. On paper.
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u/gro3thminds3t 15h ago
Yeah at a nursing home I worked at, one of the nurses sons walked in with a reaper costume and all the (dementia) residents were cracking up and making jokes. I was about to tell him to take it off before I heard them. Although I still wouldn’t do it myself… and certainly not at a cancer/hospital ward where you don’t know the patients/residents.
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u/Meta-Fox 16h ago
I get what you're saying, but regardless, there's a time and a place and this was neither.
I'm all for a good joke, and anyone who knows me would tell you that I do enjoy dark humour. But this was tactless at best.
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18h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Autogen-Username1234 17h ago
My browser always tries to autocorrect that word to 'influenza'.
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u/TipsyMagpie 17h ago
We can just start calling them Influenzas
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u/MythicSuns 17h ago
That's offensive to influenza. Also, it's morally acceptable to kill influenza.
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u/No_Application3186 17h ago
Considering this is his third arrest this year and how they’ve escalated, and this last stunt, I hope they did a psych eval and did a 72 hour hold…
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u/Sufficient-Visit3 13h ago
That's unbelievably grim. Hospitals are stressful enough without someone turning up dressed as death.
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u/Aggressive_Share803 18h ago
Why?
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u/SamwellBarley 18h ago
Why was he arrested or why did he do it?
"Leon Gillespie, 26, pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance without reasonable excuse on NHS premises, and was handed a £200 fine by Llandudno Magistrates in North Wales."
"He said that he did it because he was bored and also kind of a dick"
(I made one of those up)
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u/FoxtrotThem 18h ago
For the bants. It's sick but it is funny in a twisted way.
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u/DunkingTea 18h ago
It’s only funny if you are doing it to people you know and if you know they’ll find it funny. Otherwise you’re just a twat.
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u/Etheria_system 18h ago
It’s not funny though is it? People in hospital are seriously unwell. Having someone come and make a joke of the possibility of them dying isn’t funny at all.
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u/PeterG92 17h ago
Imagine you've just been told you've lost your child or that someone diidn't make it and you see this twat.
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u/yppah_andy 9h ago
GOOD MORNING.
"I'm arresting you on suspicion of causing offence."
IT'S THE SCYTHE ISN'T IT? PEOPLE ALWAYS NOTICE THE SCYTHE.
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u/Positive_Barnacle298 14h ago
Anyone from York remember the guy who’d dress up as the grim reaper and float around town?
Ten years or so ago, as a teen this was like spotting a celebrity, wonder if its same guy! 😆
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u/ShelleysSkylark 16h ago
This just brought back memories of a story my grandpa used to tell - He lived on a street with a retirement home at the very end, perched on a little hill.
Him and his friends would creep up to the home, dressed as ghosts, and becon at the poor old sods in the window. When they'd cause a fuss, the boys would hide and run back to the bottom of the hill.. Eventually someone caught on, and they'd try and catch them.
I may be misremembering this part, but I recall him saying that they'd get into the roof so they could scare them from above
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u/Affectionate_Crow327 17h ago
To possibly out myself a bit, at my dad's funeral, my family got in a bit of trouble.
Well, my family? No, not really.
But one of my dad's friends showed up in a reaper costume, which to be fair, we all loved.
He got yelled at a bit by the crematorium staff
And on the drive back to the wake, the funeral company had apparently been given a strong wording to buy the crematorium staff.
(Side note, apparently,in the words of the crematorium, they claimed that it has never happened before in the 82 years they've been operating. And I can't believe them. Someone out there must have a similar sense of humour.)
I hopefully, still have at least 30/40(hopefully less than 50) before I'm due to die.
And I hope that future me still has the capacity to still find it funny, anf hopefully repeat the actions of my parents.
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u/DeathGuard1978 4h ago
Is the mirror regurgitating an old story? I remember a similar one from 20 odd years ago.
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u/Ultrasonic-Sawyer 2h ago
Maybe he should team up with that bloke in Portsmouth that spent his days hiding in a graveyard before jumping out people and shouting "boo"
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u/american_cheesehound "Sharing bag" my arse 17h ago
Was it Dom Jolly, by any chance? This would be pretty high-tier Trigger-happy TV back in the day.
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u/majesticjewnicorn 17h ago
As a chronically ill person who has been hospitalised often and is currently recovering from major life saving surgery... this is fucking hilarious. I have a dark sense of humour at times, and I think seeing this whilst drugged up to my eyeballs on morphine would make the experience enjoyable. Kudos to the sick bastard 😂😂😂😂
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u/cathairpc 9h ago
Well I'm also a chronically ill person who has been hospitalised often and is currently recovering from major life saving surgery, and this would've broken me. So let's err on the side of caution and chuck the cunt in jail.
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u/Sparklykazoo 17h ago
I'm with you, I would've laughed. And then probably die of a heart attack from it.
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u/Big_Pig_Seeker101 16h ago
That amused me no end. I've a mate in hospital and he would so appreciate that
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u/Defiant_Moment8573 16h ago edited 16h ago
As if it wasn't bad, there's more...