THE best true local newspaper story I've heard of for ages involved a woman shoplifter found with a salami stuffed down her underwear.

Her mitigating circumstances to a Manchester court were that she was "missing her Italian boyfriend." How did the bench keep their faces straight?

I always remember It's a Knockout host and great giggler Stuart Hall when he was a northern news presenter being unable to read a story about a speeder whose excuse to the court was that hot black puddings had steamed up his speedometer.

I had a lot of laughs covering Leigh magistrates' court in the sixties, but nothing quite so hilarious.

The best I remember is a regular woman drunk and pain in the backside in tears telling her tale of woe to the court, and some hard of hearing wag pronouncing his sentence in a loud voice -- "three months in Holloway and an Oscar."