Andy Richardson: Hapless burglar may need a change in career choice

The number one target was money. So he made an untidy search of the entire property, emptying cupboards, turning over drawers and rifling his way through private belongings.

He found a coin collection – and nicked a 100-year-old 50p. Quite what he planned to do with it remains unclear.

There was a piggy bank, too, in which my friend saved random coins she found on the pavement. So there was another 22p. We’re at 72p and counting. Keep up.

Burglary is a hard job, however, and so the unwanted bandit decided to take a rest. He headed to the kitchen to get something to eat, so that he could resume his illegal search.

There was two-week-old bread – not great, but he took a nibble. And then there were Cola-flavoured sweets. Great.

Having snaffled 72p and eaten a really stale sandwich, he did his best to reveal his identity to investigators.

First, he switched off an air conditioning unit and in doing so got his hands as dirty as a coal miner’s. Then he carried on with his search, not only leaving the place covered in finger prints but helpfully alerting the police to where they might be. Good work, Mr Burglar. He’d already left really big footprints – hence the assumption it was a ‘he’, rather than a ‘she’ with really big feet – as he’d climbed on stuff at the back of the house.

And then he turned the place upside down, looking for money that was not to be found. Fuelled on a cola sweet sandwich, he broke stuff in a messy search before taking another rest. This time, he needed more than a few sweets and some two-week old bread.

I don’t have a professional qualification in criminology, but I’m going to bet most of them go equipped with stuff like hammers, screwdrivers or other things that help them break and enter.

This burglar, however, was different. He went armed with…. wait for it… drum roll please… a stash of tin foil. And so as he took his second break, he decided to go nuclear and use his sheets of Caterwrap.

My friend spends her life in kitchens. She cooks. She’s damned good at it. And so her house is a veritable herb garden.

The burglar, however, didn’t realise that. He left the house and went into the garden, as you do if you’re wanting to avoid alerting the neighbours. There was a spade and a plant with lots of green leaves. So he dug and he dug and he dug until the plant’s roots were unshackled from the earth. ‘Great,’ imagined Bozo. ‘I’ve got a really big plant.’ And then he did what all low IQ burglars do with a random plant – he tried to smoke it using the tinfoil he’d brought with him. Nice.

He’d probably have been as high as a kite, were it not for the fact that the plant was mint.

So, instead of flying with unicorns, he left the scene with breath as fresh as toothpaste. He did, of course, leave the tinfoil that he’d used to smoke from, giving police a great blob of DNA, to go with the fingerprints and footprints that he’d also been kind enough to leave.

The police were called, of course, and wasted no time in undermining my friend. Did she smoke cannabis, they asked, weirdly, as though that might help them catch the burglar. She answered in the negative. Though who knows, she might give it a go with a mint leaf roll-up if she gets really stressed.

Then they quizzed her about the sweets, telling her that their intelligence of the burglar’s penchant for Cola-flavoured sweets may well lead them to the offender.

My friend breathed a sigh of relief. She’d lost 72p, a few Cola-flavoured sweets, a mint plant and two slices of bread. She had, however, gained a story worth far, far more.