I’ve often found it incredible the lengths some people will go to get a free drink or meal. When I started my first job working behind a bar, I was warned about a customer who was renowned for trying to cadge free pints.
He was known all around the village where I grew up. A huge, button-eyed man with the longest eyebrows I’ve ever seen. He always wore a grubby tweed jacket covered in fag burns, and spoke with a wonderfully-rehearsed Woosterian accent.
On my first night, he pulled up in his invalid carriage and ordered a pint of real ale. He sniffed it, held it up to the light like a real ale enthusiast in a fisherman’s jumper, then turned his back to the bar briefly and downed half the pint.
He turned back with foam on his nose and a look of absolute horror on his face, coughing and spluttering, and pointing at the now cloudy pint, and demanded another one. He pulled the stunt again, but this time I spotted him dropping in a pinch of flour from his pocket.
But it was small beer compared with the fraudster jailed today for trying to get a free curry from the Jamal Indian restaurant in Middlesbrough – by doctoring his lamb bhuna with pubic hair.
Lee Tyers, 40, from Yarm, was caught on CCTV putting his hands down his trousers as he sat in the restaurant and then garnishing his food.
He told staff he’d found the hair in his food in a bid to get out of paying his £39.55 bill.
Restaurant owner Jamal Chowdhury told the court he’d known Tyers for 18 years, but was owed £110 for unpaid meals.
The crook told staff he had cash to pay, before he and a friend ordered two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan bread, lager, a chapati and a shish kebab.
The pair ate most of their food, and then Tyers complained to a waiter about finding pubic hair in his bhuna. They then left the curry house without paying.
Mr Chowdhury told Teesside Magistrates’ Court: “I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown – it’s not our hair.”
Tyers was found guilty of false representation and jailed for two weeks and ordered to pay £39.55 compensation.
He was known all around the village where I grew up. A huge, button-eyed man with the longest eyebrows I’ve ever seen. He always wore a grubby tweed jacket covered in fag burns, and spoke with a wonderfully-rehearsed Woosterian accent.
On my first night, he pulled up in his invalid carriage and ordered a pint of real ale. He sniffed it, held it up to the light like a real ale enthusiast in a fisherman’s jumper, then turned his back to the bar briefly and downed half the pint.
He turned back with foam on his nose and a look of absolute horror on his face, coughing and spluttering, and pointing at the now cloudy pint, and demanded another one. He pulled the stunt again, but this time I spotted him dropping in a pinch of flour from his pocket.
But it was small beer compared with the fraudster jailed today for trying to get a free curry from the Jamal Indian restaurant in Middlesbrough – by doctoring his lamb bhuna with pubic hair.
Lee Tyers, 40, from Yarm, was caught on CCTV putting his hands down his trousers as he sat in the restaurant and then garnishing his food.
He told staff he’d found the hair in his food in a bid to get out of paying his £39.55 bill.
Restaurant owner Jamal Chowdhury told the court he’d known Tyers for 18 years, but was owed £110 for unpaid meals.
The crook told staff he had cash to pay, before he and a friend ordered two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan bread, lager, a chapati and a shish kebab.
The pair ate most of their food, and then Tyers complained to a waiter about finding pubic hair in his bhuna. They then left the curry house without paying.
Mr Chowdhury told Teesside Magistrates’ Court: “I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown – it’s not our hair.”
Tyers was found guilty of false representation and jailed for two weeks and ordered to pay £39.55 compensation.