What to do if you are arrested

What to do if you are arrested


Jamal went into Beckenham Police Station. He put what looked like a photo of himself on the desk. The desk sergeant smiled. He even called him "Sir".

The photo was in fact the front cover of an information booklet which he had written. The book was entitled "What to do if you are arrested." It had been commissioned by Alice Biggs of the Beckenham Police PR department.

Jamal went to his job at a supermarket after this. It was the very same supermarket which had prosecuted him for shoplifting the previous year. After his solicitor had successfully argued that the prosecution was a trumped-up charge invented by a racist floor manager they had had to let the floor manager go and they accepted Jamal’s application for a job.

It was the lowliest job in the store and he’d been told in no uncertain terms that he was not shortlisted for promotion or longlisted or indeed listed.

“Jamal, this aisle needs tidying up if you think you can find the time.”

The new floor manager thought his sarcasm was funny. He was alone in that opinion.

As a Muslim, Jamal did not actually drink but that didn’t stop him going to the pub at lunchtime with the other employees when shift patterns allowed. He drank J20 at times and occasionally Guinness Zero to conceal the fact he wasn’t drinking alcohol.

One fellow employee was Sam Polly. He always warned the others to beware that Jamal didn’t steal anything from them. This was another joke, or so he said.

On Friday afternoon there was a blockage in aisle three and Jamal was unable to remove it. The blockage was Jamal’s dead body.

The autopsy revealed that he had an existing heart condition and the CCTV showed that Sam Polly had playfully, or not so playfully, pushed Jamal to the ground and triggered a seizure.

Sam was arrested and taken to the local police station.

The custody sergeant did not call him “Sir.”

He was a little surprised when they handed him a pamphlet with a picture of Jamal on the cover. It frightened him.

The End

by Derek McMillan





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