In Britain, Big Brother Destroys Your Stereo!

A fellow living in Wales has found out the hard way that Great Britain has become an asylum: disturb the tranquility of the other inmates and the guards come down on you with billy clubs.

According to a story on BBC News, a man named Karl Wiosna apparently got on the wrong side of one of his neighbors by playing Cher and U2 too loud on his stereo, so the neighbor went whining to the “town council”. The town council is like a Homeowners’ Association here in the states; they claim to be for everyone’s benefit but if you annoy the wrong person, they will do everything they can to ruin your life.

In this case, they sent “environmental health officers” (read: more nosy neighbors) around to Wiosna’s house and after all kinds of no doubt expensive research, decided that he had played his music too loud on two separate occasions. From the article:

During the raid on his home, council officers, aided by police, seized Wiosna’s speakers, two tape decks and record players, portable radio and more than 30 tape cassettes and book of CDs..All of Wiosna’s equipment has now been destroyed and he was also fined £265 ($600) by local magistrates after he admitted the charges against him.

Jeepers creepers, if they did this to a grown man with a stereo, what do they do to kids starting up a band? Do they give them a warning or do they just chop their arms off?