A bungling burglar left police a giveaway clue to his identity, scrawling graffiti which revealed his name on a wall after ransacking a campsite in north-west England, police said Thursday.
"Peter Addison was here!" wrote the 18-year-old in black marker pen on a wall after the drunken burglary with an accomplice in August in which they smashed crockery and let off fire extinguishers. Just in case that was not enough for detectives, he added his gang's name daubed on the wall: "The Adlington Massiv!" He also added "R Gay" to a poster saying "Garden Birds of Britain." Detectives rapidly traced Addison on their computers.
"This crime is up there with the dumbest of all in the criminal league table," said Inspector Gareth Woods after Addison and Mark Ridgeway, also 18, pleaded guilty to burglary at Macclesfield Magistrates' Court. "There are some pretty stupid criminals around but to leave your own name at the scene of the crime takes the biscuit.