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Pirate Electrician Supplied Power To 1,500 Homes

Posted by samzenpus on from the scuttle-the-meter dept.

fridaynightsmoke writes "A former electrical engineer for utility EDF has been prosecuted for illegally supplying power to some 1,500 homes in north London. Derek Brown, 45, was arrested in 2008 after being seen tampering with the electric grid in a manhole. He specialized in connecting separate supplies to houses that were split into apartments. One landlord involved, Haresh Parmar, was jailed for 9 months for stealing £30,000 worth of electricity for 22 of his apartments. Brown's assets will be seized and he has been sentenced to 8 months suspended, and 150 hours community service."

15 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Oh my-- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    What a shocking development

  2. freedom by Dionysus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Electricity wants to be free!

    --
    Je ne parle pas francais.
    1. Re:freedom by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, electricity wants to be *grounded*.

    2. Re:freedom by Kvasio · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just look at profits of power supply companies. And electrons don't see a single penny from it. Protest against exploitation of electrons and share the electricity (by connecting to public lighting)

  3. About his prosecution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    So I guess the charges he was brought up on were negative, am I right?

    1. Re:About his prosecution by sincewhen · · Score: 5, Funny

      I see you have posted AC...not DC.

      --
      -- Braden's law of data: All data spends some of its lifetime in an excel spreadsheet.
    2. Re:About his prosecution by mjwx · · Score: 2, Funny

      I see you have posted AC...not DC.

      Nah nah na nah na... Thunder.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  4. Easy to do, awesome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's easy to do and totally undetectabe - I've been on pirate power for yea

  5. 150 Hours of Community Service by Krittick · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like he already did the community service.

  6. Not stolen, just borrored! by noidentity · · Score: 3, Funny

    He didn't steal the power, he just borrowed it. For every electron that went into his wires, he sent one right back to the electric company. So he just copied them. Or something.

  7. Re:Buttle, anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    #!/usr/bin/python
    import electricity
    #????
    print 'profit'

  8. genius! by Qubit · · Score: 2, Funny

    But say I had an electric vehicle with cleverly designed arms (like the gear on the top of a tram) which could reach up to the power lines, charge up, then fold up again. I could probably get away with doing that for years in the middle of the night, especially if I had signs on my vehicle suggesting some official status.

    Wait, so let me get this straight: You design an electric vehicle with special arms whose sole purpose is to reach up its arms at night to recharge, then sit there during the day as the battery drains out, then reach up again a night or so later and recharge again.

    And you do this for years...

    Brilliant!

    --

    coding is life /* the rest is */
  9. Re:Logical disjunction? by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 3, Funny

    And yet it enabled him to supply more power than the average renewable power government project. I say we need more nuts and rocks !

  10. Re:This is not piracy by lxs · · Score: 1, Funny

    He was merely following Joule's first law. It can't be illegal to follow the law.

  11. Re:British Power Supply by tehcyder · · Score: 4, Funny

    The insane way

    No, the truly insane way to steal power would be to nick a nuclear power plant and install it in your garden shed.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it