SENT TO JAIL FOR SENDING MAIL

A Withering man has been taken into custody after attempting to extort money from Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Cyril Gallsworthy, 45, of Bigglesworth Road, spent yesterday evening in detention in Froghill police station after repeatedly mailing the Chancellor asking for a personal loan.

Speaking to the Observer from his cell, Mr Gallsworthy said: "I’ve been a taxpayer all my life, but recently I’ve been a bit strapped for cash. Well, I’ve been putting it in for long enough, so I thought why shouldn’t I be able to take some out in return?

"So I wrote to Mr Brown asking if he could lend me a bit to help pay the gas bill.”

On that occasion, Mr Gallsworthy received a polite reply from the Chancellor’s office, explaining that it was not common practice for the Treasury to lend money to private citizens. This did not deter him, however.

“What with Christmas coming, I didn’t see how I was going to make ends meet,” said Mr Gallsworthy, “so I sent him another mail asking for a couple of thousand, just to tide me over. I mean, I wasn’t asking for a handout or anything, I promised to pay it all back.”

This time, however, Mr Gallsworthy’s mail received nothing but silence. Angered by the obvious snub from Number 11, he got straight back onto his computer keyboard.

“I emailed the Chancellor saying that if he didn’t put five thousand into my bank account by the close of business on Friday,” said Mr Gallsworthy, “I’d go to the papers with the story about the tapir and the rubber tube in the House of Commons bar last month.

“It was just a bluff,” he added.

But it was a bluff which backfired, as Mr Gallsworthy found out to his cost. For unbeknownst to him, there actually had been a scandal involving a tapir near the House of Commons in November. Allegations of misconduct by senior members of the cabinet appeared in the Snail on Sunday, leading to a week of frantic damage limitation by the government.

“I never read the papers and my telly got repossessed in September,” said a rueful Mr Gallsworthy last night, “so I didn’t know anything about any scandal, otherwise I never would have done it.

“The police have told me that if I’m lucky, I’ll be granted bail,” he added, “but I don’t know how I’m going to pay it.

"Perhaps I’ll write to Elton Ben - he’d have to be good for a bob or two.”