Given the life I’ve led, I’ve been fortunate indeed to have picked up a criminal record for only one offence.

It was the day Ipswich beat Arsenal in the FA Cup Final of 1978 – an otherwise excellent day.  We’d gone out for a curry that night and the idea emerged between the four of us to do a runner without paying.  My mate’s wife and me left first, casually strolling to the door and shouting very obvious “ta-ras” to the other two.

The plan was for these two to leg it afterwards.  It was a plan brewed in several pints of Boddington’s beer and you’ll get a feel as to how carefully planned and pre-meditated it was when I tell you that we had no key to get into my mate’s house.

So we waited outside for an hour or so until a police car turned up, took us to the station and separately put in cells.  Each of us was interviewed, again separately, which gave me an early insight into interrogation techniques.  We were finger printed, charged and sent home some hours later.  Presumably they needed the cells for bigger crime bosses than we four “leggers”.

A few months after we appeared in court in Ashton-under-Lyne to face the cold justice of the British legal system.  At one point a long and involved charge was read out to each of us by the Clerk of the Court which ended with the question “How do you plead?  Guilty or Not Guilty?”

Now I ought to explain that my mate Martin has had a lifelong stammer which is worse when he’s under stress.  When the charge was read out to him I could hear him next to me making a breathy “Gggggg…..”.  After what seemed like a lifetime (it was probably one of his better stammers lasting about 5 seconds) the Clerk repeated the charge louder and with more venom.  But before he finished his final question, “HOW DO YOU PLEAD?”, Martin, with the last ounce of his breath squeezed out from his lungs a pitiful “….ilty”.

We got fined a tenner each, had to pay a fiver to the restaurant and a fiver in Court costs.

I believe that PACE allows criminal convictions to be classed as “spent” after so many years.  I rather hope the threshold is 100 years as, as a 70 year old, I’d quite like to be legally classified as anti-social.