Alarm councillors face jail

Two elderly parish councillors in a Lincolnshire village face jail after silencing a faulty alarm at an empty house that had been ringing for many weeks.

Edmund Done, 67, chairman of the parish council in Hagworthingham, and deputy chairman Michael Curtis, aged 72, were applauded when they cut the wires of the faulty alarm after countless efforts to trace the owners of the alarmed house had been unsuccesful.

Appeals to the police and District Council had got them nowhere earlier this year and so, with the support of the local community that was being kept awake and driven mad by the ringing alarm in the normally sleepy village, they cut the wires to the alarm.

Now, eight months later, after it's thought the absentee owner of the cottage complained, the pair of councillors must appear before magistrates charged with criminal damage.

They face up to three months in prison, or receive a fine and a criminal record. A Lincolnshire Police spokesman confirmed that the councillors have been charged with causing criminal damage.

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