Spooky. I’m getting a flood of hits yet again in 2023 on a ten year old story.
Candidate for the 2014 Darwin Awards, Aaron Wintin, 18, was showing off to his friends. Wintin was one of that breed of person too stupid to be able to pass a driving test, so just drove without a licence as he saw fit. When police saw him driving and tried to pull him over, he reversed at them, attempted to hide in a barn, and then drove through villages at speeds of up to 120mph.
Police caught him with a stinger device, and he continued to drive at 70mph until his tyres shredded.
Laughably, his four young passengers were said to be “shaken”. Of course they were, the little darlings – though I bet they wouldn’t have been making such a pathetic claim if they hadn’t all been caught. After all, they could easily have got out of the car while Wintin was hiding in the barn for 30 minutes. This all happened at 3am when these little dears should have been at home in bed.
Wintin’s character is easily ascertained when you consider that he was already on a conditional discharge for criminal damage. Yet another pathetic mitigating plea was heard:
Jonathan Straw, defending, said Wintin, who is due to become a father in July, lost his job as a chicken catcher after his employer learned of his court appearance.
He urged the court to impose a suspended sentence, adding: “He is just 18 with no real experience of the criminal courts and no experience of custody. The overall effect on his future life will be grave.”
The court wasn’t taken in by this crap. Wintin was sentenced to six months at a young offenders’ institution and banned for four years. It’s just a shame his passengers – who were clearly from the same low strata in society – weren’t given similar sentences.
Incidentally, I am getting a surge of hits on this story as of December 2014. Six months after I wrote the piece, and multiple hits daily. I wonder why?