Traumatic Defence

A man who last week opened fire on his neighbours with an illegally held assault rifle has claimed that he was suffering a flashback to his time in Afghanistan and thought that he was defending himself against the Taliban.  According to thirty four year old Northampton resident Joe Crapster, his lethal flashback was triggered by his next door neighbours' fireworks.  "I didn't realise that it was Guy Fawkes night - it's easy to lose track of time for combat veterans who, like me, are still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)," the former Catering Corps soldier - who was given a dishonourable discharge after being caught urinating in the soup about to be served to his commanding officer - told his local newspaper.  "As soon as those explosions started I was back in Afghanistan - it was pure reflex that I picked up that AK-47, jumped over the fence and started firing."   Crapster has claimed that the weapon was a souvenir that he had brought back from Afghanistan.  "I had no idea that it still worked - I thought that it had been deactivated," he asserted.  "As for the bullets - I've no idea where they came from."  Despite having killed three people (one of them a child) and seriously wounded seven others, Crapster has been given bail by the police and is currently receiving counselling for his war trauma at local taxpayers expense.  "Nobody is denying that he's made a serious mistake, but it's important that we support our war veterans," said a spokesperson for the British Legion.  "People have to understand that criminal behaviour is an inevitable consequence of putting yourself on the line for your country.  We owe these boys for keeping us safe, even when they shoot us.  Just remember, they have extenuating circumstances."

In the wake of Crapster's PTSD defence for his actions, a Southall man has claimed that when he violently attacked a group of trick or treaters who knocked on his door at Halloween, he was having a traumatic flashback to the time that he was attacked by a group of monsters whilst on holiday in Transylvania.  "It was an horrendous experience, first of all this group of vampire women came in through my hotel room window and started biting me," Brian Shatz explained to his local newspaper.  "They seemed to put me under some kind of spell - next thing I knew I was in the dungeon of a castle with some mad scientist telling me he wanted my brain!"  Shatz claimed to have escaped the dungeon when a fellow inmate turned into a werewolf and attacked the vampire women.  "Even when I was out of there, I found myself being chased by the Frankenstein monster," he recalled.  "It followed me all the way back to the town square, where I had a street brawl with it - the local police had to step in and break it up." Shatz claims that he had forgotten it was Halloween on account of having been completely bladdered the night before.  "When I opened the door to see those ghouls stood there, it all came back to me," he claimed.  "Is it any wonder that I chased them into the street with sharpened sticks and crucifixes?"  The adult supervising the group, who was dressed as Dracula, was impaled on a wooden stake during Shatz's attack, during which he also attempted to stab an eleven year old dressed as a werewolf, with a silver teaspoon.  Several other children, dressed variously as cowboys, spacemen and Lady Gaga had crucifixes waved at them in a menacing fashion.  Police have rejected Shatz's flashback defence, dismissing it as 'ludicrous'.  Romanian police, meanwhile, have confirmed that three years ago Shatz was arrested following a drunken fight with a local pimp, after he had refused to pay two prostitutes who had taken him to a local S&M parlour.