“A gardener who fenced off his allotment with barbed wire after being targeted by thieves has been ordered to take it down — in case intruders scratch themselves. Bill Malcolm erected the 3-foot fence after thieves struck three times in just four months, stealing tools worth around £300 from his shed and ransacking his vegetable patch. But Bromsgrove district council has ordered the 61-year-old to remove the waist-high fence on health and safety grounds. Mr Malcolm … said: ‘It’s an absolutely ridiculous situation. All I wanted was to protect my property, but the wire had to go in case a thief scratched himself. The fence was just a single strand and ringing my property … [I]t wasn’t as though I’d dug a moat filled with piranha fish and erected 6-foot iron railings. … ‘They shouldn’t be trespassing in the first place but the council apologized and said they didn’t want to be sued by a wounded thief.” (10/09/08)