This is from the London Express:

http://www.lineone.net/express/00/02/12/news/n1420-d.html

-- Zdude (zdude777@hotmail.com), February 13, 2000

Answers

Bungling burglar caught in hospital line-up

BY MARK BLACKLOCK

THERE was no sign of falling crime - only falling criminals - when burglar Alan Lorimer was disturbed during a raid.

The 21-year-old dived head first through a window and landed on the householder's wife standing in the garden. He picked himself up and fled, thinking he had got away with it - until he ended up sitting next to his victim in hospital.

Pamela McBeth rec-ognised Lorimer from the fleeting glance she had of his face as it approached through the air from 12ft above her head. So she sneaked out of casualty to alert police who arrived in time to arrest him as his wounds were being stitched.

Today Lorimer and his two accomplices are each serving two-year jail sentences for their parts in the burglary at Wallsend, Tyne and Wear.

Pamela, 28, returned from a Christmas shopping trip with husband John, 31, to find Lorimer and fellow thief Steven Tannock inside their home.

The mother of three waited outside where she thought she would be safe while her husband went after the intruders. Tannock, 21, escaped after throwing a video player at John.

But Lorimer panicked when he was cornered in a bedroom and dived straight through the glass in desperation, landing on top of shocked Pamela.

Both burglars then fled in a car with getaway driver Keith Fothergill, 30, even though John, a telecommunications engineer, chased them for four miles at 70mph in his own vehicle. He returned home to take his dazed wife for a check-up at North Tyneside General Hos-pital in North Shields, where Pamela was amazed to find the flying raider waiting next to her in casualty.

She said yesterday: "I noticed he was wearing a jacket that I thought was familiar, then I moved closer and thought his voice rang a bell.

Then he turned his head and I recognised his face immediately. "I went outside to tell an ambulanceman and he called the police. I bet the look on his face was priceless, he'll have thought he had got away with it."

Prosecutor Tom Moran told Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court: "The lady waited outside because she thought it was safe but unfortunately the gentleman landed on top of her and she cushioned his fall. She attacked him with her shopping bag but he pushed her out of the way."

He added: "Mrs McBeth was badly bruised and needed to go to hospital where she was amazed to find that the person sitting next to her was the very same man who had landed on top of her a few minutes before."

Lorimer and Tan-nock, both from Tynemouth, were jailed at an earlier hearing after admitting the burglary. Yesterday Fother-gill, of Consett, Co Durham, joined them after admitting burglary and dangerous driving.Judge David Wood said it was "an extraordinary turn of events." He added: "The story ends up with a strange twist indeed. But strangeness put to one side, these were un-pleasant offences."

-- heehee (ha@ha.ha), February 13, 2000.