I’m posting this more out of curiosity than anything else. I’ve directed this at the men of the sub because while there are obviously exceptions, it often feels like "having a bit of a record" is a more common rite of passage for the male population.
I’m 42 now, and my "rap sheet" from my younger days looks like this:
- Age 13 (1996): A "friend" and I decided to liberate some sweets from Woolworths. We got pinched by a store detective, driven home by the police, and I was given a caution. Suffice it to say, we weren't mates for much longer after that. Oh, and I never stole anything again after.
- Age 15 (1998): Drunk and disorderly in Guildford. This was back when pubs rarely asked for ID. On the way home, I decided to rip the fuse box cover off a street lamp and swing it into the road – where it landed inches from a passing police car. Nicked, taken to the station, and sat in an interview room lying through my teeth. Another caution.
- Age 20 (2002): On my 20th birthday, while incredibly drunk, I attempted to "borrow" a car from an office car park. Security called the police, who dragged me out of the seat and into the back of a van. I received a caution for criminal damage.
- Age 24 (2007): I was working as a doorman in Southampton just before Christmas. A massive fight kicked off; a colleague knocked a guy out, and the guy's girlfriend attacked me, so I pushed her away. We were both arrested on suspicion of ABH. He went to Crown Court with a jury and everything – and was found not guilty after a 3-day trial. In the interim, the girlfriend alleged I’d punched her, and I was charged with battery. Case went to Magistrates' Court in 2008, where my barrister ripped her to pieces and I was found not guilty – whole thing done & dusted in about 10 minutes.
Since that last incident in 2007, I haven’t been arrested once – no trouble with the police at all, which I’m actually quite proud of.
Have any of you reached your late 30s or 40s without ever being in trouble? I mean absolutely nothing, literally never even being stopped or cautioned.
If you have a perfectly clean slate, do you think it’s down to being a genuinely law-abiding citizen……………..or were you just better at not getting caught?