Alex Deane is right
He looks like he's dropped a turd in his pants.
Judge de-ASBOes yoof's low-slung kecks
An 18-year-old Bedford yoof has secured what appears to be a landmark legal victory for those who prefer their trousers at half-mast, the Times reports. Ellis Drummond was facing an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) "prohibiting him from using threatening behaviour, begging or entering the grounds of Bedford College", …
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Thursday 6th May 2010 10:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Tell me about it...
Young man I know - respectable, never in trouble and a hard worker. Had too much to drink one evening, and sensibly decided to walk his motorcycle home rather than ride it. Police followed him for 3 miles and then - smirking - arrested him for being 'drunk in charge'. He lost his licence, and because of that his career. Predictably, he gave up making any effort, and has been in trouble ever since. Nominally guilty I know - but surely not deserving of a punishment out of Les Miserables.
As opposed to another local chap - mindless, vicious thug in his 30s with a string of theft and violent convictions stretching back to his pre-teens. Never worked - never going to. Kicked a man unconscious, then assaulted two other people and the police who arrested him. Had to be strait-jacketed to be controlled. Given bail the next day, for heaven's sake! During the bail period, he assaulted 5 more people including me and my wife when we objected to him vandalising our car. The result? Six months community service. His original victim took longer than that to recover.
A bigger laugh - I narrowly escaped trouble because (retired and disabled) I had the audacity to use my walking stick to defend myself !!!
The whole system is a sad, sick, joke.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 09:44 GMT Just Thinking
Underwear?
In the linked article he appears to be wearing a pair of football shorts under his trousers anyway (ie if he took his trousers of altogether, his attire would be perfectly acceptable in public). Whats the problem (apart from looking like an idiot).
Hoods are a difficult one. I often have my hood up if it is cold/raining, but I can also see that a group of hoodies with their faces covered for no legitimate reason could be intimidating. Difficult to legislate on that.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 11:36 GMT Ed Blackshaw
Re: Intimidating?
Are you seriously comparing the colour of a person's skin, which they have no choice about (famous dead pop starts aside), to hanging around on a street corner with a hood on, looking shifty?
The whole question of whether the latter should be legislated against aside, well, the best word I can think of to describe your argument is 'meh'.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 23:09 GMT Trevor Pott o_O
@A J Stiles.
Yes. Well, a qualified yes. For the first while after this becomes easy and thus common, the various tracking systems will have issues with people who are totally non-standard in colour. How will the facial recognition systems cope with someone who is painted like a zebra? Or bright orange?
As far as I know there are already jurisdictions that don't allow you to wear highly IR-reflective body or face paints. For that matter, people "dressed up" in coloured paints such that they have non-standard colours for their skin are regularly barred from certain establishments.
Perhaps the day will indeed come where federal legislation is considered in some western country that "you must walk around in the skin colour you were born to."
Do I personally think these rules are good, right, just and moral? No. Then again, I don't agree with tracking everyone all the time either.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 09:44 GMT Anonymous Coward
In an unlikely piece of logical thinking...
'The order also sought to prevent Drummond “wearing trousers so low beneath the waistline that members of the public are able to see his underwear”'
Not that he looks capable of it in the picture, but by applying a bit of convoluted logic, couldn't you argue thats a legal order to stop wearing underwear?
Mine's the one with the arse cut out.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 09:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Undies
I'm obviously getting very old, but I "don't get it" - the trousers half-way-down-your-legs thing. It looks bloody stupid for a start. And how do you stop them falling all the way down? Or run for a bus? In my day, of course, you would paint your hair pink, have studs in your head and wear a tatty leather jacket. That all seems perfectly reasonable - at least we didn't look like we'd shat ourselves!
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 09:52 GMT Lee Dowling
Origins
I don't know how true it is, but I've been told that the origin was from the US prison system where things like belts are confiscated and "not being part of the crowd" was dangerous. Thus all youths eventually copied the behaviour, thinking it a social necessity.
I love to explain this to the kids I work with... why are you wearing your trousers like a pillock? Because you are emulating someone stupid enough to get caught and who can't be trusted not to hang himself in his cell if you give him a leather belt. It makes them think twice.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 09:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
What a twit
I know that the yoof of today will say that we are not kool and stuff. but WTF???
I saw this young women at the train station recently. Her trousers were so low the croutch was at her knees. She had to wear a very long top to hide her g-string. And yes I know it was a g-string because I saw it when the wind moved her top. the waist line was at least 3/4 downher arse FFS.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 12:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bedford Magistrates Court....
....is an excellent place to go if you want to do some people watching. There are few layers of society that don't appear in there and it's quite fascinating if you have some time on your hands.
A friend of mine used to run the tea and cake stall in the reception area, the stories she could tell....
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 10:38 GMT French Tickler
Trend Origins - Shocker!
I wonder if he would be so keen to wear his arse revealers all the time if he knew the true origin of the 'trend'.
In the States, the practice of wearing the trousers below the underwear line was started in the California prisons during the 1970's by certain inmates wishing to advertise their 'sexual availability' to any interested parties.
This has spread all over the world and it is highly doubtful that the scrotoids in Britain and the rest of the world or for that matter, actually know HOW this practice began, but it is nevertheless true.
I am sure that if you ask nicely and maybe give them a wink, any older inmate that is or has been incarcerated in California will attest to this.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 10:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
OK,
OK, so he looks stupid, but who the hell runs for a bus? What kind of an argument is that?
A kid wearing misguided fashions may look stupid, but a middle-aged computer programmer running for a bus looks like a total loser. Wait for the next one, and get out of bed 5 minutes earlier tomorrow.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 10:46 GMT Elmer Phud
Less moans - more equality?
Come on folks - how about either banning girls who also show bum crack or just stop grumbling.
What they look like doesn't really matter - unless you were all dressed up as Little Lord Fauntleroy and are voting for the grown-up version tomorrow.
Most of us will have looked stupid or just plain odd to others when we were young.
Old man's trousers should also be banned, along with fat bastards who wear string vests and gold chains. ASBO for anyone with a small yappy dog in a bag, anyone driving a Toyota Pious and those who 'ironically' use 'LOL'.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 11:34 GMT Carsten Holmskov
Legislation impossible
As the judge so rightly says, judging against this would be a breach of the Human Rights Act, not to mention Freedom of Expression.
That said though, each generation have their own set of "Twat-a-like's" and while they do seem to grow progressively worse, at least it has one major advantage.
It makes it easier to identify the idiots.
Say you are a Employer, if I see a guy like that coming in for a job interview, the guy could be Einstein Reborn and I would rather hire the cockroaches that live in his shoes than him.
While some of you seem to identify it as a "Hey im a wanna-be-gay-prison-dude", I identify it more as a signal of "Hey-im-a-guy-with-no-future" type, you know the sort, those that will be serving me fries at MacD when he is 40 or washing my car.
Let people express themselves as they wish with their clothing and looks, as long as you don't go over the limit and start running around with your 3'rd leg in the open
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 11:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
But ...
While I'd love to join the "what the good lord does he look like, in my day ... " etc etc.
It should be remember that an asbo is a good way of criminalizing legal behaviour.
i.e.
Wearing trouser down by your knees - not illegal
wearing trousers down by your knees in contravention of an asbo - punishable by prison
Why I like to point and laugh at "da yoot" as much as the next middle aged IT worker, the idea that some clown can make almost anything an offence that can get you locked up is not a good thing. Not really funny. Quite scary in fact.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 14:04 GMT Lee Dowling
Mmm
But that's pretty much what the judge said, too. He *didn't* allow that part, only the part that would cause problems (him being about that area, so no worse than restraining orders that have existed for decades, except this is a sort of restraining order to protect a community rather than an individual).
ASBO's are quite possibly mis-used on occasion but anyone that gets an ASBO will also argue until they're blue in the face and used every court in the land to get it struck off. You can no more break the law than before - it's just that people *think* you can. When UK and EU law overlap, EU law takes precedence. It's when the courts start interpreting things differently that you have to *really* worry.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 14:04 GMT Daniel Wilkie
*sigh*
Reg Commentards - Forming-a-frothy-response-to-half-the-story-matters
Seriously, the guy wasn't JUST in front of the beak for wearing his trousers low, go back and read the story - plenty of more serious crimes too (though I'm not sure why they were being dealth with via just an asbo).
Honestly, you lot sound like the people they ask for comment when a local drug dealer or similar gets stabbed for ripping off the next person up the chain - "Oh he was such a nice lad" "Yeah he'd never hurt anyone" "Why did it happen to him" "I blame the government"
You make me sick in my mouth, and not in a good 2 Girls - 1 Cup kind of way!
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 14:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's kind of funny...
...how Reg readers will rail vehemently at the restriction of their own freedoms, but when it comes to someone else, they're fine with it as long as they disagree with the freedom concerned.
You can't pick and choose, guys. If you're opposed to the nanny state telling you what you can do, you've got to defend those you disagree with as well as those you agree with - because eventually, someone's going to disagree with -you-.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 15:43 GMT Liam Johnson
WTF
What are you talking about?
There was not one single comment complaining that he should be ASBO'd for wearing silly trousers. Nobody wants to restrict his freedom the dress fashionably. Everybody seems fine that the Judge let him off on that point, there are simply commenting that the fashion looks stupid.
You are free to have your opinion, but that doesn't mean I can't laugh at you for totally missing the point.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 16:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Er
No-one here has any desire to curtail his sartorial choices. I find it quite annoying that a court would try to ban him, and I'm actually glad they were overruled.
He can wear what he wants, as long as
1) He doesn't expose his harrbles (actually, personally, I don't care about that either, but I'm thinking of my more strait-laced friends and relatives)
2) I don't end up paying for his frostbite or sunburn/heatstroke
3) He doesn't object to people laughing at him for looking like a total twat.
For what it's worth, I live in Rushden, and I'm pretty sure I've seen him a couple of times. Or someone very similar. And I think this is possibly another use for the word "TwatDangle".
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 21:07 GMT A J Stiles
Interesting stuff -- and a parallel.
I can quite believe about the "trend" of exposed underwear having started in prisons where clothes fit badly and belts were banned.
About 12 years ago, in the town where I live, a bunch of eco-warriors (naq V jnf bar bs gurz) camped in a public park to prevent it from being turned into a road junction. Some of the local kids took to wearing half-laced army boots in the street, thinking it was a new fashion trend.
What they did not know, and they did not know because they did not bother to ask, was that camp sites tend to be quite muddy places. To avoid tracking dirt into tents, vehicles &c., one removes ones shoes immediately on entering -- that is just etiquette. For brief excursions -- calls of nature, visits to other tents &c. -- which will require imminent de-booting, one does not bother to pull the laces taut, let alone tie them. It is therefore common to see people wearing half-laced boots *around the site*. But for longer walks, one gets shod properly! (Or gets blisters.)
Mine's the ex-German Army one.
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Wednesday 5th May 2010 21:07 GMT kain preacher
John Lilburne
Prisoners in US jails are given ill fitting clothes and no belt. Hence the trouser half way down your legs. Makes it easier for them to be anally raped too.
Nice try but complete wrong. US prisoners are given belts unless they are under suicide watch.
The pants hanging down did come from prisons , but it meant you were advertising . Its like dropping the soap in the shower and bending over for a long time .
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