FYI, just saw this in the Daily Telegraph today. <sigh>
Ezra
Poll candidate took 50 metric road
signs
By David Sapsted
(Filed: 05/04/2002)
A UK Independence Party candidate at the last
general election stole dozens of road works
signs
because they were "illegally" showing distances
in
metres and not yards, a court heard yesterday.
Tony Bennett, 54, a campaigner for the
retention of
imperial measurements, took the signs from a
pipe-laying site in Hadlow, Kent, last July.
Maidstone magistrates heard that the following
day
he had sent a letter to McAlpine, the
contractors,
admitting he had taken the signs, worth £40
each,
and saying he would return them only if they
were
changed to yards.
The court was told that 50 signs went missing
in a
fortnight. Bennett, from Harlow, Essex, does
not
deny taking the signs but pleaded not guilty
yesterday to theft and criminal damage because
it
was his "civic duty" to remove the illegal
notices.
Michael Shrimpton, defending, told magistrates
that
it was still mandatory in the UK to use
imperial
measures on road signs but, because the law was
not enforceable under criminal law, offending
companies could not be prosecuted.
Alistair Paterson agricultural liaison officer
for
McAlpine, said that the signs were replaced
with
imperial ones within 48 hours of the theft. He
accepted that McAlpine should not have been
using
metric signs in the first place.
Bennett, a trained solicitor, has yet to give
evidence.
He said outside the court: "We want to keep
Britain
British. We do not want to see the British way
of life
changed. I will protest this case for as long
as it
takes."
The trial was adjourned until May 1.
