Pirate Finds Fashion Legal Loop Hole

DVD pirate Joanne Dunn escaped being tagged by a court after claiming it would make her look like a criminal. She moaned that the electronic device on her ankle would prevent her going out in a skirt... even though she turned up for the hearing in trousers.

But last night the amazing let-off was slammed as "ridiculous".

Euro MP Martin Callanan stormed: "There should be no discrimination in sentencing just because somebody wears a skirt instead of trousers.

"Nothing stops a woman wearing trousers. If you were Scottish would you not be tagged because you wore a kilt?"

He added: "If the woman was that keen not to wear a tag she should not have committed the offence in the first place."

Mum-of-four Dunn, 37 - who is on sickness benefit - admitted 12 charges of DVD piracy. She was fined £500 with £5,000 costs, to be paid at £25 a week.

She was arrested after a raid on her home in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, last March. Police found 405 pirated DVDS and equipment that could copy three films at once.

Objecting to the tag, lawyer Peter Thubron told magistrates: "Males can wear them a lot easier than females. Trousers mean no one knows you have a tag on.

"For a lady going out wearing a skirt... she is being labelled very obviously as a criminal."

Last November, Natasha Hughes, 18, escaped tagging for breaching bail on an assault charge at Worcester - claiming that she would be forced to wear trousers.

Story source: mirror.co.uk.