Battle of the bobby pin

Sean Nicholls and Leesha McKenny - February 24, 2010

He is best known for making headlines during a star turn at the Police Integrity Commission in 2004. But on Monday the former Burwood detective Christopher Laycock found himself in court trying to overturn a conviction for stealing a Wiggles hair clip.

Laycock landed in a spot of bother in October 2008 when he left a Best & Less store at Blacktown with his family and was collared by police. Asked to empty his pockets, he did so, and out popped a Dorothy the Dinosaur hair clip, valued at $7.99, which Laycock had not paid for. ''Oh shit,'' he said. ''It was a mistake.'' Asked why he had done it, he replied: ''Stupidity, nothing else.''

Laycock was charged and opted to represent himself in the local court on August 11 last year, where his forensic questioning of witnesses to the heinous crime produced 68 pages of transcript. He was eventually convicted and fined $250, but Laycock was not finished.

He appealed to the District Court, where the judge, Linda Ashford, taking account of his age, 39, and circumstances (a family and Centrelink benefits of $400 a week), and his record of just one other unrelated blemish, chose not to record a conviction.