Summer term
Going into the summer term of my second year at Durham, I anticipated scenes of warmth, freedom, and partying.
As I stared out the window of my LNER train from Kings Cross to Durham with Taylor Swift on full volume, I dreamt of walking to Tesco not wearing my thermals, two jumpers and a goose-down puffer coat. Waking up with my only decision being whether I have sushi or sashimi for lunch. Days spent on the racecourse sipping enough Somersbies to be entertained by a football. Playing games of “snog marry avoid” whilst my slightly intoxicated friend chauffeurs me in their VW Golf back from Tynemouth beach. Screaming, “I’m loving angels instead” whilst enough alcohol bubbles through me that I start to question whether DJ Dave B is actually attractive. These were the scenes I imagined. It’s safe to say I was fairly surprised to find myself sitting in a Durham Magistrates court, putting forward my witness statement against a man who was being charged with stealing my knickers.
I was not only surprised because all the knickers I own are M&S high-waisted women’s briefs, meaning they’re not only undesirable for anyone other than my own comfort, but they’re also probably less valuable than the one-use plastic bags half the student population seem to “accidentally forget to scan” at the Tesco self-checkout. I couldn’t work out whether it was more surprising anyone wanted to steal them, or that the police had time to charge someone with such a low-value theft. Nonetheless, there I found myself on the 26th of May, in Peterlee’s magistrates’ court, telling the judge I was rather upset that David Ian Wales had stolen my knickers.
Storytime
This unexpected situation all started when I was sitting in the TLC writing an essay in May and got a random phone call: “Hello, Kitty, this is the Durham police. We need you to come down to our office immediately.” These are not particularly settling words when you don’t remember walking home from Babylon the night before. Luckily, they quickly reassured me I wasn’t some Exeter-like cretin who accidentally stole a child on the way back from a night out thinking it was Yoda – but was rather a suspected victim of theft. They refused to comment on the details of the theft until they saw me in person. I jumped out my TLC seat and ran the fastest km splits of my life to the Police station whilst simultaneously searching up my car insurance details. My red golf, appropriately named Valentine, was my only possession I thought could possibly be worth stealing. I arrived, darting through the police station doors, demanding if my Valentine had been stolen. The police officer was rather baffled.
The PC sat me down to ask if I recognised various items found in a man’s house in Gilesgate. The first piece of evidence, “250 Snappy Snaps printed photos’” found nestled in a black box underneath the man’s bed, alongside an ordering receipt with my name on it. I looked at the photos, instantly recognising my gap yah Snappy Snaps collection I had been looking for since January. The PC insisted we look through the entire folder to confirm they were mine. My heart rate doubled.
Me eating a jamon baguette on the floor of a Venetian chapel; me tactically squatting in every corner of Europe; me pretending the Leaning Tower of Pisa was my massive cock; me drunkenly posing with the Barcelonan Policemen as if they were my gigolos; my friends pretending to give each other fellatio in the confession box of the Sistine chapel.
Yes, yes, yes. They’re all mine.
When documenting my gap yah travels, it’s safe to say I had not prepared for them to end up in a police forensic investigation wallet and to be sat with an officer by my side identifying each one as mine. Luckily, he only seemed mildly phased.
We then moved on to the “main criminal damage.” The officer said this piece of evidence was “too large for the forensic investigation wallets.” I was taken to the next-door room to view it. Of course, this couldn’t fit into an investigation wallet. There lay piles of thousands and thousands of pants. This Police investigation room looked more stocked than a Victoria’s Secret Warehouse.
Thongs, hipsters, tangas, cheekies, boyshorts.
Blue, pink, black, grey, orange, ambiguous.
Ann Summers, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Gap, Tesco.
Spotty, striped, seamless, stained … at least David Wales was not picky.
For panty sniffers, this was Willy Wonka’s factory. For most, this was an apocalyptic graveyard of generations of Durham girls’ pants.
The PC ruffled through them to reach what he believed to be mine. He picked out the ugliest pants of them all, some high-waisted women’s briefs, with my school’s name tapes hanging down. For some, a uniformed PC handing you back your knickers could feel like living the start of a kinky low-budget Hollywood drama; for me, this was little more than a public exposé of my greatest hidden pleasure … “Oh yes, the massive granny pants are mine too.”
After much embarrassment, I was eventually dismissed from this rather traumatic trip to the police station, returning to the TLC questioning whether the portobello mushrooms I had for lunch were, in fact, magic. An Outlook email from the Durham Constabulary shortly confirmed this was not a hallucinogenic trip, detailing the case and asking if I was available next week to provide a witness statement in court.
So that’s the story of how I found myself on the 26th May, in Peterlee magistrates court, telling the judge I was rather upset that David Ian Wales had stolen my knickers.
Court day 26th May 2023
It was my first ever court case, so my nerves woke me early. I showered and put on my smartest clothes – a white linen shirt and some black suit trousers. To be safe, I was, of course, commando.
I was driven to court promptly by another victim’s fuming parents, who had driven 8 hours from their home to bring their daughter justice. Annoyingly, David Wales was less concerned about timings and arrived 5 hours late, with no legal representatives. Thankfully, however, he was not dressed from head to toe in knickers; instead, he was in a biker jacket and jeans. After brief discussions, the court concluded that his panty-thieving was too extensive to be dealt with at a magistrates court, so the case was raised to a higher court.
Three months later, on the 12th of September 2023, David Ian Wales pleaded guilty to all charges at the Durham County court and will spend the next 3 years in prison. David Ian Wales was finally, well and truly, caught with his pants down.