Lose with Dignity when you Support your football team But Don’t Lose Your Head
Going to soccer matches in the evening should be an enjoyable social outing. Except some supporters get way too carried away by their emotions. Hooliganism has been a feature at major “Derby” matches, typically in the UK where two local teams in Liverpool or Manchester face each other. The “disease” arrived at Stade Louis II unfortunately when AS Monaco faced off against Olympic Marseille and lost by three goals to two. Three AS Monaco fans were so incensed by this defeat at home that they lost their heads outside the Fontvieille car park as an Olympic Marseille supporter drove out of the exit. They greeted him with jeers which quickly descended into insults. Instead of pausing for a cooling off period it became more heated as they bent the wind screen wipers and damaged the mirror of the car. Getting out of his car the OM supporter was tackled, immobilized and his shoe thrown down the street. Finally he was slapped around which, of course, landed the three over-excited AS Monaco supporters in court.
For one of them at least, going to soccer games was an invitation to bend the rules because he already had a conviction for taking a rocket into the stadium. The prosecution sought stiff fines. Do you think the Court accorded the prosecution’s request? In the end the Court was somewhat more lenient fining each 100 euros, but with larger fines suspended against future good behaviour.
Theft of an expensive women bag followed by Remorse Still Brings Trouble
A young lady in Monaco strolled toward the Port, sat on a bench on the way, put down her back-pack, and then continued her walk forgetting she had left the back-pack on the bench. Meanwhile an Italian tourist came by and opportunistically swiped “the prize” from the bench. Inside were keys, credit cards, ID, about 40 euros in cash and some T-shirts. The victim was quick to alert the police and the police in turn were quick to check the security cameras. What they saw was the Italian dumping the contents of the back-pack in a planter and walking off with his now empty prize. Interestingly the “robber” had a change of heart the next day. He returned to the bench to replace the back-pack little knowing that the police had seen him on camera already. And he had also published an apology to the victim on Facebook.
Meanwhile the victim had filed a formal complaint as she had also had to have all the locks changed on her apartment. So the upshot of all this is that the remorseful Italian finds himself in Court with a lot of explaining to do. Stammering and embarrassed he admitted that he craved owning an expensive back-pack. Just having it for 24 hours gave him a buzz. Unfortunately for him the Court was not amused. The victim was awarded 2000 euros reimbursement of costs and the Italian was given a 1000 euro suspended fine. Enough to make him think twice before “borrowing” an expensive item again for 24 hours!
The Magical disappearance of 1000 euro casino chips
They have seen every possible ingenious attempt to syphon off money at the casino – even magicians get into the act. Instead of practicing magic on the stage, criminals pull every trick in the book in the casino to cash in illegally. Usually the casino’s own security experts spot them early and intercept them with the help of the police. Except one very skilled Lebanese paired his talents at sleight of hand with a specially adapted shirt sleeve to hide his switching low valued chips on the roulette table for 500 euro and even 1000 euro chips. So successful was his art of magic that he got away unseen. It was only later that the casino discovered the loss and then analysed what had happened with their security cameras. The police were alerted and the case went to Court.
The Lebanese magician, it turned out was in his eighties. He had had many years to perfect his technique; a technique that was plaguing European Casinos. He was a no-show at Court but was obviously unremorseful and very proud of his expertise. Surprisingly, he wrote confessing not to a string of casinos across Europe. In his absence, the Court sentenced him to 15 days in prison. He can focus his magic instead now on keeping out of jail!
