Yahoo News Policewoman Jailed For Not Arresting Burglar
A police officer has been sent to jail because she "couldn't be bothered" to arrest a suspected burglar.
PC Michele Selby let the man off because she had letters to deliver to a police station.
The former Strathclyde police office has been jailed for a year for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Selby was on duty at 5.30am on July 2010 when she and a fellow constable spotted a man acting suspiciously at the door of a Chinese restaurant in Kirkintilloch.
Selby's colleague told Glasgow Sheriff Court that he looked like he was trying to break in.
When the officers went to speak to him, they saw he had a screwdriver, wrench and a crowbar.
He claimed to be trying to fix the restaurant door.
Selby told him: "We know you are trying to break in and if we didn't have another call to go to you would be getting the jail."
She then confiscated the tools and took them back to her police station where she put them in a bin.
The court heard that Selby told her colleague the 'other job' was to deliver mail and said the man "would have got the jail if she could be bothered".
It emerged in court that the suspected burglar had six previous convictions, which included one for a similar offence.
Selby's behaviour was reported to fellow officers by her colleague.
Selby, 38, who has since resigned from the Strathclyde Police force, told her defence lawyer in court: "I made a mistake. It wasn't intentional, it wasn't wilful, it wasn't evil."
