Ever done something for a guy (or girl) you love and trust that turned out to be a really shit idea? That’s what Lynn Tetteh, 24, did for her boyfriend. He said he was moving house and needed her to look after something in the meantime so hid a package in a soil pipe in her bedroom cupboard.
She let him keep the package there, and she says that it was only later, when police raided her flat, that she realised the package contained an AK-47 gun and ammunition. A lot of ammunition - 412 cartridges and three magazines. Tetteh has now been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to two counts of possessing a prohibited firearm and ammunition.
At Inner London Crown Court, Nic Madge said there were no exceptional circumstances stopping him from sentencing Tetteh to the minimum of five years in prison, reports T_he Evening Standard_.
Tetteh, who works, well, worked as a receptionist, and is a university graduate, was selected by her boyfriend to store the illegal firearm precisely because of her previous good record, Judge Madge said as he sentenced her: ‘Regrettably the experience of this court is that it is all too common for men of violence to use the premises of women of previous good character to store their weapons in the hope that, because of their character, no one will suspect them.’
The shame is, if Tetteh is to be believed (there are so many reasons why she would have refused to plead not guilty - from bad representation to a fear of a jury bias), the only thing that hurt her good character, that turned her from a good person to a criminal, was trusting a man to respect that good character and not exploit it.
This is a regular occurrence, and not just according to Orange Is The New Black. According to Vicky Pryce, who served time in UK prison after taking her then-MP then-husband Chris Huhne’s speeding points, most women are in jail because of men. Talking to The Mail On Sunday about her book, Prisonomics, which concerns the economics of prison and was written during her stay: ‘What really did it was talking to the women in Holloway and realising they were there mostly because of some thing their husbands, brothers, fathers, had done.
‘What I thought was that these women were very vulnerable when they had committed whatever it was they had committed and in some cases taking the rap for what others had done.’
Hmm. Same old story again, then.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.