Our serial killer has finally been caught. Actually I shouldn’t say that. He is after all presumed innocent until proven guilty. I’m talking about the case of the five murdered women in Ipswich by the way. The women were all prostitutes and worked in the same area.
I’m dying to know why the police arrested this guy and why they ended up charging him but they’re not saying anything at the moment for legal reasons. I would love to be a fly on the wall in that court or better yet, a juror. This is weird because when I got called up for jury service once, I was absolutely horrified by the idea of having to sit through a very gruesome case or something nasty like child abuse.
What I ended up being a juror on was in fact neither of the above. A man had brought his wife to court accusing her of pouring paraffin over him and trying to set him on fire. She had failed in her mission however and all that he had to show from his traumatic experience was a rash he had got on his left butt-cheek from the paraffin.
I don’t even know how this case had ever made its way to court. The whole thing was basically like a comedy sketch. In a way it felt a bit like god was making fun of me.
‘What dear? You don’t fancy being a juror on a grisly murder case? How about a bit of mild domestic argument then? Do you think you could handle looking at pictures of a man’s butt with a little rash on it or would that be too much for you too? Please tell me because if you don’t like this, I could maybe fix it for you to go to the furry animals court instead and be a juror on the case of mister Squirrel taking Fluffy Bunny in front of the magistrate and accusing him of stealing his nuts.’

For added comedy value, the woman was tiny while her husband was very tall and lanky. She only came up to about his waist and she was wearing high heels! I’m not saying she was not capable of doing anything nasty because she was small but looking at them you would think that no matter how scary things got between those two, as long as he was not tied down, that guy could always simply step over her. Or like in cartoons, put one hand on her forehead and keep her at an arm’s length and stand there watching her as she throws kicks and punches his way without being able to reach him.

We were not told what the original argument between this couple had been, we were just told that they were arguing about something. In the middle of it all, the wife takes a break to go into the kitchen and pour herself a nice bowl of paraffin. As you do! Not to drink by the way, the paraffin was to treat her head lice, which incidentally is very common in Britain. I’m saying this because I know by reading this, a lot of people in Iran at least are now thinking, ‘How ghastly! Hope you convicted that dirty tramp and threw away the key.’ But as I said anyone can get head lice over here and from what I saw, that paraffin thrower/husband burner, was in fact a very lovely and respectable young lady!
Anyway as I said, the lady takes a break and pours herself a bowl of paraffin but her husband who is obviously not aware of international laws regarding ceasefires, follows her into the kitchen and continues with their argument. Long story short, after a while she gets very angry and chucks the paraffin on him. However being so small, she only manages to get it on his waist.
The paraffin that had sunk into the man’s clothes, had resulted in a mild rash on his left buttock that he had had a friend take pictures of at the time. These were passed around the court for everyone to look at. And here is where all my sympathy for this guy went right out of the window. Tell me if you don’t think this is nasty. In the pictures, the man was wearing blue Y-fronts. Blue Y-fronts for crying out loud! Why?
In case you’ve missed it, blue Y-fronts are a serious pet hate of mine. I don’t like Y-fronts full stop but I find the blue ones in particular extremely horrifying.
Good job I didn’t become a judge right?!
‘The man is wearing blue Y-fronts, off with his head!’
‘But he is the complainant Your Honour.’
‘Oh! Are you sure? He looks pretty dodgy to me. Could I at least maybe slap him a couple of times?’

So that’s basically the gist of my comical jury service experience. Obviously it was nothing to give me nightmares or anything like that. Afterwards my fellow jurors and I did kind of wish that we had been given a case a tad more serious than a butt rash. However I must admit this experience was a bit of a turning point for me.
It’s weird having two nationalities, especially if like in my case, your two nationalities are so different from each other. I guess it’s a bit like having two children that are very different. Say one is a bit of a retarded drug addict and the other is a model-looking genius. From what I’ve seen, if a mother has two kids like this, she will always pay more attention to the first one. She will take care of him more and maybe even love him more than the second one who she may end up ignoring or maybe even loathing. Well she figures the second one doesn’t need her really because he is great and everyone knows he’s great too so he will be fine. The first one however will probably only ever be loved by her.
This I think is similar in a way to the two nationalities that I have, Iranian and British. Guess which is which child!
Anyway just like that mother, I have always sort of taken the side of my not-doing-so-well nationality and picked faults with my other one. Well the first one is an easy target basically and the way I see it it needs my love and protection more. However there was something about my jury experience that made me see things a bit differently.
As I sat in that beautiful court room with the judge and the lawyers all in their wigs and costumes, very seriously presenting pictures of a man’s butt-rash, all I kept thinking (apart from, ‘that butt-rash man has no sense of style whatsoever’) was, ‘how fantastically civilised’. I hope I’m explaining this well because it’s quite a delicate subject but it just felt so amazing to be a part of that whole thing. I mean this is a country that values it’s people enough to give an arty someone (whatever I am) a chance to have a say in what becomes of a paraffin throwing, lice-infested little lady and her lanky blue Y-front wearing husband! I just think that is so wonderful. I’m being serious now.
I guess you could say that in an extremely unusual turn of events, a man’s butt rash ended up making me feel proud to be British! And I still get the same feeling when I think back to that time. So it was a good experience after all.
Course I will continue to take the side of my easy target, flag burning, holocaust denying, generally as politically incorrect as they come country and pooh-pooh my other nationality (which I’m not saying is without its faults) but the difference is that now we both know that deep down I respect it immensely and love it really.

Wonder if the Ipswich killer wears blue Y-fronts. I’m telling you, those kinds of people are not to be trusted ;-)