The Women’s Institute Is a Blackberry-Thieving Crime Gang

The Women's Institute. You may know the middle aged, Middle England ladies who make up the international organisation from Calendar Girls or the village show your gran spends the summer baking industrial quantities of sponge cake for.

Nothing more than a parochial mothers' meeting, right?

Wrong. The WI is a highly skilled network of super thieves threatening the very fabric of British society.

At least that's according to Cambridgeshire police sergeant Colin Norden. He caused many to splutter over their toast and marmalade earlier this month when he branded the WI Britain's "biggest organised crime group," due to their penchant for picking wild berries to make the jam they sell at fundraisers.

Speaking at a public council gathering, Norden did not mince his words: "The WI pick wild berries with the intent to sell them at a fete. That's a crime."

As per the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and Theft Act 1968, it is illegal to pick berries or foliage for commercial purposes. Avon Barksdale ain't got nothing on Sally and her ring of blackberry-dealing hedgerow hustlers.

Luckily for the WI, Norden's comments were made in jest as an example of anti-social behaviour not usually prosecuted by the police.

Still, it is always the quiet ones …

Illustration by Dale Crosby-Close.