Fruit Crimes

 

12 months ago subscribers to my Patreon were treated to my hard-hitting investigation into Fruit Crimes. With the ongoing fruitification of crime it is time to move it out of the paywall and let everyone know about them.

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Fruit Crimes

Apple Assault

In 298 AD the emperor Quintillius was enjoying an orgy when an over-excited praetor threw an apple too hard, hitting the imperial head. Believing in poetic justice the emperor offered 1000 sesterces for the largest apple in the empire. When it arrived he threw it back, killing the praetor instantly.

Banana Bribery

In 1635 the Duke of Eastphalia had by careful political plotting kept his state out of what was developing into the Thirty Years War. His efforts failed when it was revealed that he had attempted to bribe Cardinal Richelieu with one million bananas, then a very fashionable fruit. Richelieu displayed the bananas as proof of the Duke’s guilt until they turned brown and he threw them away.

Raspberry Robbery

In 1963 Bernard “Greenfinger” Smith and John “Squishy” Cole, notorious gangland figures, held up a raspberry lorry on the North Circular in an armed robbery. They took the lorry, leaving the driver by the roadside. Smith was arrested at his Mum’s later that day, Cole while trying to escape through the Blackwall Tunnel. The raspberries were never recovered.

Tomato Turpitude

In 1848 Annette Jones of Cardiff bay was convicted of crimes involving the immoral uses of tomatoes and transported to Australia. Unfortunately the judge declared the evidence too lurid to be made public and ordered the court records sealed for 200 years. Look for the special edition of Fruit Crimes on 1st January 2049 for more details.