Becoming disillusioned with the vacuous world of social media? Fear not! Facebook isn’t just a valuable tool for posting pictures of your breakfast and pretending to school friends you haven’t spoken to in decades that you love your life – it can actually put criminals behind bars, too!
Repeat-offending ruffian Jonathan Barton of Lurgan in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, found out that social media has no time for antisocial behaviour when it led to his arrest earlier this month. The thief, assailant and all-round bad egg was given a 12-month sentence when a campaign to name and shame him for his petty (but no less dastardly) crimes did the rounds on Facebook.
D-Bees-iness
Barton first embarked upon his crime spree in March this year, when police were called to a scene at which he kicked in a car window. He was released on bail but stubbornly refused to learn his lesson, holding up D-Bees off-license just two months later. After first entering the store, he made a sharp exit – only to return moments later with his face covered. He made off with £15.98 worth of cheap hooch.
Not fooled by his face-covering gambit, the storekeeper uploaded the footage to Facebook and asked for friends to share the status in the hope of naming and shaming the culprit. However, they didn’t have to wait too long before Barton got himself in hot water again. The very same night as the theft, Barton headbutted a local copper, breaking his nose and earning himself a spell in the slammer in the process.
When police joined the dots between the CCTV footage and Barton’s trail of destruction, he was handed a series of sentences, most of which to were be served concurrently. As a result, he will only serve 12 months as opposed to the total time of 32 months which he had accrued on his lawbreaking bender.
NY in Meltdown after Ice Cream Crimewave
Do heatwaves lead to crimewaves? Apparently so, in downtown New York. Across the pond, owner of store chain Gristedes John Catsimatidis has also taken to social media to combat a recent spike in ice cream thefts in his shops.
Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream has been targeted by opportunistic bandits, who’ve noticed a gap in the market brought about by the elevated temperatures over the last few months. On one particular occasion, a pair of crooks made off with 80 tubs of the stuff, prompting security concerns in the store and leading Catsimatidis to launch a similar Facebook campaign aimed at locking up the felons.
He’s offering $5,000 to anyone capable of bringing the ice cream outlaws to justice, though he laments the fact that the bodegas to whom the robbers sell the stuff are equally culpable. He’ll be hoping the power of social media (coupled with the might of the US dollar) lead to the same success that D-Bees enjoyed in Lurgan.
CCTV – the Prevention and the Cure
Having a state-of-the-art CCTV system installed in your own home or place of business is essential in not only bringing culprits to justice when a break-in occurs, but is also a powerful deterrent in preventing such incidents from happening in the first place. To find out more about how Blackburn Alarms can help safeguard your home or workplace with CCTV, intruder alarms or access control systems, get in touch with us today.
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