Some people never grow up. Everyone can remember a childhood or teenage experience in which, when caught red-handed holding an illicit cigarette, perhaps, or just some ?biscuits swiped from the tin, one is prepared to fib even in the face of certain punishment. This is a mark of immaturity and desperation, and ?generally we grow out of it.


But when the courts fall for such schoolboy behaviour, one must thank the stars for the Court of Appeal. On 17 January the court finished off an appeal following a case in which two drug dealers, H and R, had been nicked in the possession of about £700,000 worth of cocaine. The Crown reckoned they were running a 'conspiracy' worth £5.5 million. When visited by Her Majesty's finest, they were also in possession of what 'The Sweeney' would call 'shooters'.



But the reason R gave for having a gun is one of the finest examples of barefaced cheek: 'Upon their arrest, H and R were both found in possession of firearms; H's was loaded and R's was on a shelf in plain view with ammunition and a silencer next to it... R asserted that he had possession of his gun merely for storage, rather than as a means of protecting his business interests, as alleged by the Crown.'



In other words, R thought it might seem better if he claimed that he used his gun for stashing his coke in, rather than needing it for actually shooting anyone.



Rather wonderfully, the judge in R's original trial seemed somewhat swayed by this nonsense, sending him down for just ten years.



The Court of Appeal took a dim view of all this and decided that was too lenient, upping the term to 14 years. It also frowned sternly on R's plea, saying the case was 'a paradigm example of how the courts should not approach a case'. Ouch.