since our Powercat 525 Evolution catamaran was declared 'dangerous' and 'unfit for purpose' we have had to find other ways to fill our time.  Time that we would have been spending out on the clear blue waters of the Ionian sea around sunny Kefalonia.

One way of using my leisure time is to keep this blog and surf the web for useful information.

Sometimes I get sidetracked by various interesting by ways.  One such sidetrack was a visit to the BBC website to check up on the news and goings on in the UK.

I found this story about a recycling lady who was arrested on suspicion of theft when she liberated four plastic chairs from a council landfill skip.

Ms Bove said she was initially offered a caution, but declined because she did not feel she had committed a crime.

She is waiting to see if any further action will be taken.

A North Wales Police spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that we received a complaint that plastic chairs were stolen from a recycling centre on 2 May.

"On 8 May a local woman was arrested on suspicion of theft and has been released on police bail pending further inquiries.

"We are duty bound to investigate all allegations of criminal offences and this includes theft."

Now from my days studying law at Southampton University I was taught that for theft to be proven you need something called 'intent' or 'mens rea' , the intent in this case would have to be 'appropriation with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner'

This is the reason the specific crime of 'taking and driving away without owners consent' or twoccing of cars was passed by parliament.  Because of joy riders who just drove cars away and never intended to permanently deprive just ahve abit of fun and then abandon them or even sometime return them to the spot from which they found them.

Now for Ms Bove to be guilty of theft she would have had to know the chairs had a rightful owner and as the chairs had been discarded as obviously unwanted - the person who bought them had obviously given up their ownership of the chairs. Belief of abandonment by owner means that theft cannot be charged., as there is no crime.  What about the council? It was their skip they were in?

Well the chairs should not have been in the landfill skip.  Does the council own rubbish or is it merely charged with its disposal?  If the accused beleives that the council is charged with the rubbish disposal and does not see the council as the rightful owner (in fact I am not sure it could really claim that it was) then intent to deprive the righful owner is not provable.

In my unqualified opinion Ms Bove was right and no crime was committed.

A council spokesperson said -

"This practice is clearly very dangerous and not allowed under any circumstances.

"We have not pressed any charges."

I'm willing to bet that some Wrexham council workman had an eye on those chairs and was miffed when Ms Bove got there before him/her and called the police out of spite.

It is common knowledge that anything 'good' that goes into council refuse centres gets 'appropriated' by workers - when are we going to see some of them charged with theft I wonder?

I'm sure I remember a joke about this place which ended 'Wrexham?  Well it doesn't do them any good!'

Can anyone remember the beginning?