A man was jailed for robbing a bank with a banana and a shopping bag.
Laurence Vonderdell, 50, has been given a 14-month-sentence after convincing staff at a Barclays bank in Bournemouth U.K, that the fruit was a gun and telling them: “This is a stickup, give me the cash”.
Vonderdell escaped with £1,100 in £20 banknotes however soon approached two police officers and immediately confessed to the crime. But according to a report on Metro, his motives for the robbery were more basic than one would ever think. According to Metro, Laurence Vonderdell, 50, ” wanted to be arrested so he would have a roof over his head after being evicted. He went to a branch of Nationwide with his banana but walked out because there were too many people in the bank so went to Barclays instead.”
After taking the cash, Vonderdell “then approached two police officers telling them that he had just carried out a bank robbery but they did not believe him and he was sent on his way. Vonderdell then walked another two miles to a police station where he was arrested for robbery.”
Jailing him Judge Robert Pawson said: “He’s gone into a bank with a banana in a plastic bag. It sounds laughable but the cashier didn’t know that. What would have happened if an armed response unit had been called?”
According to a Bangshowbiz report, Detective Constable Andy Hale added: “Even though the defendant handed himself in shortly after this incident and the cash was recovered, this must still have been a very distressing incident for the cashier involved.”
New data gathered from the United Kingdom, from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) reveals that 8,855 people slept on the streets in the English capital in 2018/19, a rise of nearly a fifth (18 percent) in 12 months as reported by the Independent.
