Pirate Electrician Supplied Power To 1,500 Homes

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."

Oh my--

[Anonymous Coward]

What a shocking development

freedom

[Dionysus]

Electricity wants to be free!

About his prosecution

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Easy to do, awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:About his prosecution

[sincewhen]

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

150 Hours of Community Service

[Krittick]

Sounds like he already did the community service.

Re:freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

No, electricity wants to be *grounded*.

Not stolen, just borrored!

[noidentity]

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.

Re:Buttle, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

genius!

[Qubit]

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!

Re:About his prosecution

[mjwx]

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

Nah nah na nah na... Thunder.

Re:Logical disjunction?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

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

Re:This is not piracy

[lxs]

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

Re:freedom

[Kvasio]

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)

Re:British Power Supply

[tehcyder]

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.