The Last Laugh

From Scotland comes the story of the stand-up comedian who has learned the hard way that it is not funny to steal books from his employer, HarperCollins Publishing. The Sunday Mail reveals just how incompetent a thief Gary Little is. Let's hope that Gary can work up a special routine for his new jail friends.

A STAND-UP comic faces jail after police smashed his £100,000 scam selling stolen books on eBay.

Gary Little swiped thousands of bestsellers from publishers HarperCollins while working as a forklift truck driver at their warehouse near Glasgow.

He sold the haul - some of it valuable limited editions - online to buyers across the UK at knockdown prices.

The 44-year-old netted at least £100,000.

...

A friend of Little said: "Thousands of books were going out the back door and straight on to eBay. Many of them commanded premium retail prices. So when they were offered cut-price on the internet, there was still good money to be made.

Little was a trusted employee and the scale of what was going on was shocking."

...

Little's operation was smashed in February 2005 but he only pleaded guilty this month at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

Following sentencing, the procurator fiscal will lodge an action to recover money from him under proceeds of crimes laws.

Something tells me that this particular clown will probably not see much jail time considering how long this case has already been pending. I suppose the bright side to something like this, though, is that it proves that books are still seen as a valuable commodity despite all the gloom and doom we hear about the imminent death of hard cover publishing due to lack of interest on the part of the ever-diminishing reading public.