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news
Former Cycle King shop in Bury St Edmunds (Google Street View).PNG'Bored’ workers trying to cremate mouse burn down bike shop
A judge has said it was “sheer stupidity” that led two workers at a Cycle King shop in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk to try and cremate a mouse, leading to a fire that burnt the premises down, causing £1.6 million damage.
Ashley Finley, 25 and from Elmswell and Dysney Sibbons, 23 ad of Stowmarket, both pleaded guilty at Ipswich Crown Court yesterday to arson, being reckless as to whether any property would be destroyed or damaged, reports the East Anglian Daily Times.
Besides the shop, neighbouring buildings on Angel Hill were also damaged by the fire, which broke out at around 5pm on 29 September 2017.
It took 60 firefighters, some from neighbouring towns, to bring the blaze under control, with the building needing to be demolished afterwards.
Judge David Pugh said: "I am satisfied from reading the papers in this case that it was an act of sheer stupidity by these two defendants, particularly because of the location of where they were planning to amuse themselves to alleviate a boring day by cremating a mouse.”
Finley and Sibbons have been bailed pending sentencing, which is due to take place next month.
Cycle King, which trades from 18 stores in south-east England as well as five shops trading as Hawk Cycles in the West Midlands, has since reopened its Bury St Edmunds branch elsewhere in the town.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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20 comments
The idiots have been sentenced.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-49111300
I'd have thought they would have been put under mouse arrest.
I used to believe Bury St Edmunds only existed in Agatha Christie books until I learned some interesting cycling trivia:
James Moore, born in the town on 14th January 1849, won the world’s first cycling road race (the 1869 Paris–Rouen).
Normal for Suffolk
Is that better or worse than Norfolk-normal?
Personally, I think the defendants may have watched Clerks or the working-in-the-shop segments from The 40 Year Old Virgin and just thought, Yeah! We can be like wild and wacky fictional American shop workers too!
(Or maybe they knew the mouse in question: was it a feral mouse or was it a pet? The article doesn't say)
Hang on, one of the defendants is called Dysney, and this is a mouse?
By an amazing coincidence, I too have recently cremated a mouse! My cat left a dead one at the bottom of my stairs a few weeks ago and, out of idle curiousity, I decided to leave it and see what happened. As it turned out, it dried out nicely and became rather flattended.
I was burning some garden waste and cardboard boxes in my garden incinerator the other day and I thought to myself 'why not give poor Mr. Mousy a viking send off?' So I did
.
Oh come on folks. There is something fine, noble even, about giving the poor deceased mouse a proper send-off. I can see it now, the blazing matchbox/coffin atop the Viking longship as it sails majestically across the kitchen sink and into the sunset. It's no good, I'll have to pause now, I think I've got a bit of grit in my eye ......
Those Stowmarket tractor boys, when are they going to learn?
Cheese toastie anyone?
Maybe they were just trying to have a mouse warming party?
laughsquirrel.jpeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-oqgIZGhbU
As a story to gloomily tell your insurers, or anyone else, that really is the opposite end of the spectrum from 'an F16 crashed into it'.
Don't think I'll be patronising a bike shop that hires people quite so lacking in intelligence.
I'm assuming they also cremated quite a few bikes. Hang them.
I had the misfortune of working for Cycle King in the early 80s and while there would have been plenty of BSOs in the shop there wouldn't have been much to get upset about.
I wonder if they got jobs at Halfords - https://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/40-firefighters...
I'm not sure how it started, but as it's next door to Pets at Home, it very nearly cremated a large number of small furry animals.
It’s also next door the The One Bull, my favourite pub in BstE. It was closed for a very long time for repairs. That was a true tragedy. However, I doubt anyone will miss Cycle King very much.
And suffered alot of water/smoke damage as a result & their loss of trade alone through being shut fixing that, could have had very serious consequences for their own business.