Boss charged for parading a thief
A boss who marched a thieving worker to a police station with a placard round his neck has been charged with false imprisonment.
Yet the criminal himself has escaped with just a slap on the wrist.
Simon Cremer took action against Mark Gilbert after learning he had cashed a forged company cheque. He hung a sign reading ‘Thief’ on Gilbert and paraded him past shoppers on a busy high street before handing him to police.
s have decided the thief should receive nothing more than a caution, while throwing the book at 44-year-old Mr Cremer, who thought he was making a citizen’s arrest.
Mr Cremer and three workers from his carpet fitting firm who helped him overpower the sub-contractor have all been charged with false imprisonment – an offence that carries a maximum life term.
Even Gilbert has expressed surprise that the men had been arrested, admitting: ‘I’m the criminal here.’
The charges came on the day Whitehall statistics showed tens of thousands of serious criminals are receiving only a caution – including rapists and paedophiles.
But the number of criminals being sent to jail is at its lowest level for a decade.
Mr Cremer, a father of two, said yesterday: ‘I can’t believe the police system. This is a guy who is a proven thief, he stole a cheque, forged a signature and took money by deception, surely there’s enough to charge him. But no, he’s been let off with a caution.’
Mr Cremer, who has no criminal record, added: ‘I would do exactly the same thing again, especially now he has got off with a caution. I don’t regret my action, the fact I tied his hands is the only bit I regret.’
His partner Karen Boardman, 44, who has just returned to work as a receptionist at a GP’s surgery after treatment for breast cancer, attacked the ‘topsy-turvy justice’ that could see Mr Cremer and his three employees spend time behind bars.
She said: ‘I am disgusted. I have no faith left in the British justice system.
'The person that committed the crime has walked away, completely free. He will be sitting at home over Christmas, without a care, while Simon and the other three, who are all family men, have this hanging over them.
‘Their judgment was maybe clouded slightly because times are tough but I will not condemn what they’ve done. Even giving them a caution would be wrong.’
Mr Cremer, of Little Maplestead, Essex, was alerted to the theft in September when the Cash Converters company phoned him about a bounced cheque from his firm, In House Flooring.
It emerged that Gilbert, from Colchester, who earned up to £1,000 a week, had taken a cheque from an old book, written it out for £845, and cashed it for holiday spending money.
He claims he was owed wages but his boss had been too busy to write out a cheque – a claim Mr Cremer vehemently denies.
When Gilbert next went in to work in Witham, Essex, he was wrestled to the floor, tied up and bundled into a van before being paraded 350 yards through the streets.
In a scene reminiscent of the medieval approach to justice, when suspects were named and shamed by being sent to the village stocks, a cardboard sign was slung around his neck which read: ‘THIEF. I stole £845. Am on my way to police station.’
Gilbert claims he was punched, threatened with tools and feared for his life. But Mr Cremer insists no violence was used, although he ‘restrained’ his employee for his own protection.
Gilbert said of his former boss and colleagues: ‘I feel for them and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them. But it wasn’t really correct what they did to me.’
