CHURCH TOPPED WITH POT PART OF WACKY 2003

Prime Minister Jean Chretien speaks during Question Period in the
House of Commons on Wednesday October 29. Chretien joked in October
that he might be willing to try marijuana once it's
decriminalized.

Churches are usually adorned with crosses, but parishioners of a
southwestern Ontario congregation were shocked this year to find
marijuana plants stretching for the heavens atop their house of worship.

Two members of the Gospel Hall congregation in St. Thomas, Ont., were
on the roof for some routine maintenance when they found more than two
dozen pot plants being cultivated there.

"It's a little bit of a surprise to find it on the rooftop of a
church," said Staff Sgt. Chris Herridge of the town's police force.

Investigators weren't optimistic they would be able to collar the holy
growers.

This was just one of several incidents of wacky wrongdoing encountered
by Canadian authorities in 2003. This was, after all, the year when
even the prime minister publicly contemplated breaking the law to puff
on a joint.

Jean Chretien joked in October that he might be willing to try
marijuana once it's decriminalized.

"Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will
have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand," the
69-year-old Chretien said.

In legal circles in 2003, a recent Ontario case proved that man who is
his own lawyer does indeed have a fool for a client.

After representing himself in court on drug convictions - and losing -
Clayton Gordon hired a lawyer to take his case to Ontario's appeals
court, claiming his convictions for selling cocaine should be
overturned because he had bad counsel.

But the judge, no fool himself, ruled the convictions should stand.
Gordon was ordered to serve seven months in jail.

Perhaps Gordon had been hoping he could bore the judge into releasing
him, like the man convicted of mischief and criminal harassment in
2001 who got a new trial this year after the courts found his judge
fell asleep during cross-examination.

The accused's trial lawyer, Kim Schofield, said she and other court
officials in Toronto opted to drop a 2,136-page copy of the Criminal
Code on the judge's desk to get his attention.

"I dropped the Code and His Honour was visibly stirred from his
slumber," Schofield said in her affidavit.

Some lawbreakers may have wished they'd followed the judge's example
and stayed in bed this year. Instead, some of them did what they could
to make it easy for the cops to track them down.

An Edmonton thief was looking to unload a stolen SUV and picked the
wrong buyer earlier this year when he offered it back to its original
owner for $50. He was arrested before he sealed the deal.

"It certainly made our job easier. I wish they would all end that
way," Wes Bellmore, an Edmonton police spokesman, said at the time.

Another Alberta crook put a stop to his own nine-day robbery spree
when he gave police all the clues they needed to find him.

He dropped his wallet - containing identification - during a gas
station heist, giving the investigators who'd been baffled to that
point the lead they needed to make the arrest. Albert Bradridge, 38,
was sentenced earlier this year to eight years in prison.

Two teenagers ran out of excuses this summer after they allegedly
stole a boat and took a joyride down the LaHave River in New Brunswick.

The teens, aged 16 and 17, took the boat, got drunk on some liquor
they found on board, beached themselves on an island and then torched
the watercraft - stranding themselves with no way to get home. The
boys, who weren't named because of their ages, were eventually flown
ashore in an RCMP helicopter.

A wannabe cop got more than he bargained for when he pulled over a
passing car on a country road in Ontario this June. He had equipped
his car with flashing red lights and used it to pull over the vehicle.

The off-duty Ontario Provincial Police officer behind the wheel of the
passing car spied several giveaway details - among them, the fact that
the so-called cop was driving a white Plymouth Neon under the flashing
lights instead of an actual police vehicle - and instead, arrested his
would-be captor.

The 40-year-old alleged impersonator faces up to 10 years in prison if
convicted.

An elderly northern Ontario driver clearly had some problems with the
road rules this year when she dramatically failed her drivers test.

On her fifth try at the test, with the examiner sitting in the
passenger seat, the 81-year-old backed her car 25 metres too far out
of a parking spot and plunged backwards over a steep embankment into a
nearby river.

Both she and the drivers' examiner were unharmed but it took a tow
truck about 15 minutes to recover the sodden car.

She didn't pass the test.