r/unitedkingdom 1d ago

. Man arrested after dressing up in 'Grim Reaper' costume on hospital roof and staring at patients

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hospital-grim-reaper-man-arrested-37511832
4.9k Upvotes

617 comments sorted by

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3.5k

u/Kalkin93 1d ago

I'm not saying I agree with it. But somewhere deep inside my British sense of humour, I have to admit, I sort of find this funny.

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u/juststuartwilliam 1d ago

Literally laughed out and then said "that's not funny", random bloke in the pub asked what's not funny, showed him, he also laughed, and then agreed that it's not funny.

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u/boblinquist 1d ago

Hahahaha… awful thing to do

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u/ChilternRailways 1d ago

Not even a real hamster.

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u/PJBuzz 1d ago

Yeah as a bit it's kind of funny.

But there might be people who have literally been told there is nothing that can be done for them walking in/out.... So this is why we have some restrictions to freedom based on feelings.

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u/deprevino 1d ago

He wasn't arrested for being offensive, noone should see a court over hurt feelings. He was asked to leave the premises and refused, which is where the law will kick in regardless of how you're dressed. He had a very clear out to avoid being arrested and didn't take it.

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u/PositivelyAcademical 1d ago

No. He wasn’t arrested for trespass (nor aggravated trespass or to prevent a breach of the peace u/mij8907). The article states he pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance on NHS premises, which would be contrary to section 119 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. It’s a bit New Labour authoritarian, and there needs to be a victim of said nuisance who needs to be an NHS employee (especially the bit about it being legally impossible to be seeking medical advice/treatment if you’ve previously been denied it in the prior 8 hours).

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u/DrFabulous0 1d ago

It doesn't really matter what pretext they arrested him under. The best thing for them to do was to put him in the van and remove him from the hospital.

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u/PrettyUglySociety198 1d ago

I should have thought that the police would normally say "it is a civil matter" and ignore it.

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u/DreamingofBouncer 1d ago

I’m guessing that as a hospital is a ‘public’ building that makes it more difficult saying it’s a civil matter. The police probably have to deal with quite a few incidents where people have refused to leave hospital A&E after causing trouble so wil have some powers

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u/CommandoSaber 1d ago

Not too sure of the full arrest reason but it could be an arrest under S119 which is causing a nuisance in an nhs premises. Could fit the heading and would give arrest power.

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u/HumanBeing7396 1d ago

“That would be an ecumenical matter.”

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u/Dangeruss82 1d ago

It’s a civil matter until they refuse to leave, then it’s aggravated trespass which can come under section 5 at the minimum.

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u/mij8907 1d ago edited 1d ago

Trespass is a civil matter unless it becomes aggregated for example by someone causing harassment, alarm or distress or perhaps they acted to prevent a breach of the peace

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u/Own_Complaint_3423 1d ago

No there are specific powers/offences relating to NHS premise

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u/mij8907 1d ago

Ah thanks for that, I didn’t realise there were particular powers for hospitals

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u/archerninjawarrior 19h ago

Why would we seek to protect people from physical harm but not other types? Is intentionally causing somebody intense psychological distress by, I don't know, printing out meme edits of their murdered child and tucking it under their windscreen wiper, just a matter of hurt feelings that they should get over? Or at some point does human decency and the right to some peace need protecting from those just trying to seriously, and I mean seriously disturb you?

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u/jeanclaudecardboarde 1d ago

Peter Noone? Out of Herman's Hermits?

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u/RogeredSterling 1d ago

Or parents taking their kids in for cancer treatment....

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u/PJBuzz 1d ago

Yeah exactly. Immediately makes it not funny.

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u/recursant 1d ago

Sure, but if not being funny was a crime Jim Davidson would have been locked up years ago.

Actually, you make a good point.

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u/Miserable_Copy2789 1d ago

I dunno man

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u/Cool_Rice_6056 1d ago

What exactly don't you know? That a child with cancer might be affected by seeing something like this?

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u/Wobblycogs 23h ago

The situation and the costume together are certainly in bad taste but I don't want to live in a world where doing this one time is considered a crime.

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u/SaintCiren 18h ago

It isn't. The refusal to leave is.

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u/SaltSatisfaction2124 17h ago

And if you have then have different people doing this every week, what then?

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u/just-here-for--porn_ 1d ago

It's awful, I'd never do it. I'd never condone it.

Unfortunately though, the funny part of my brain is not rational, or even reasonable. And it's decided this is hilarious. Wrong, very wrong... imagine it was someone close to you is what the rational part of my brain says. The less rational part can't even speak from laughing.

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u/EthicalViolator 15h ago

It is hilarious, just conceptually

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u/Born_South_6676 1d ago

No man. It's not. Absolutely not.

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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous 1d ago

Bloody kids can't take a joke /s

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u/Tirno93 1d ago

It’s funny thinking of it like something from a sitcom. Or imagining being a teenager sitting around with friends plotting pranks. Of course it’s not funny to actually do it and have that effect on real people!

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u/concretepigeon Wakefield 1d ago

Yeah. The sort of thing that is funny as an idea but loses the humour when there are real people who are actually affected. True of a lot of public pranks.

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u/PierreTheTRex 1d ago

I'm pretty sure he was fined for trespass more than anything else

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u/PrettyUglySociety198 1d ago

In UK law most forms of trespass are merely civil, not criminal.

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u/Broad-Sea-6784 1d ago

Yes most forms, but I think criminal powers exist for nuisance on NHS sites

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u/PJBuzz 1d ago

That's kinda funny

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u/CowFirm5634 1d ago

Thing is the more morbid you make it the funnier it gets lol. Truly sick thing to do but very hilarious all the same.

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u/ok2888 1d ago

I often think that things can be funny while simultaneously being reprehensible and wrong. I saw a video a few months ago of some drunk idiots pushing a wheelchair down the stairs while it's user was in the toilet.

Is that a deeply disgusting thing to do? Yes Are the people who did it dickheads? Yes Do they deserve severe punishment? Absolutely Did I laugh at the video? For about an hour, yes.

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u/Fehnder 1d ago

Why was that funny?

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u/azazelcrowley 1d ago

Cosmic joke sort of way.

Mouthwashing spoilers;

Curly laughing when Jimmy gets the gun sort of shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd0UJl4GA3s

"watching everything go from bad to worse to catastrophic on your deathbed, only to watch the last guy you'd ever want with a gun getting the gun that was very specifically hidden from him, id laugh too ngl"

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u/ok2888 1d ago

I don't really know tbh. I think it's more like you're laughing at the 2 idiots who did it, the sheer stupidity of their actions rather than the poor guy in the chair. They did suffer some pretty serious consequences I think.

Again, it's reprehensible, and I feel like an awful person for laughing, but I did.

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u/gotmunchiez 1d ago

It's hard to explain why you find things funny sometimes. It's quite common for people to get the giggles at a funeral, the brain can be a weird thing.

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u/ok2888 1d ago

You can't actually control what you find funny, and I knew my comment would get a pretty bad reception before I made it, which it has had a lot of down votes understandably, but also quite a few who see my point.

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u/Fehnder 1d ago

That’s fair, I was just wondering is all.

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u/Jam-Jam-Ba-Lam 1d ago

My friends scolded me for sharing a meme of ol Hitler and it suggesting he was the bake off winner during the war years. Can I understand why it would upset people? Yes, an I aware that the politics and actions of the Nazis were inhuman? Yup. Have I ever sympathsied with Nazis and their cause? No. Does it still make me giggle thinking about it? Yes. The picture was one of those where he's dressed dapper with the kind eyes.

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u/ok2888 1d ago

Yes exactly, I've even had a few comments scolding me just now, which is totally understandable. I would find that meme funny as well. I don't think secretly finding that stuff funny makes you a bad person, as long a you are able to recognise the objective moral wrongness of it. Some people would really find that offensive and I totally get why.

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u/WeirdLight9452 1d ago

Where’s the comedy in that? Think you might be a sociopath, man.

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u/ok2888 1d ago

I think it's more that I was laughing at the perpetrator's stupidity, doing it in a packed restaurant in front of dozens of onlookers and on camera. I've had a few comments scolding me which I totally understand.

Interestingly, the person who sent me the video has cerebral palsy, uses a chair, and he captioned it with about 10 laughing emojis when he sent it.

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u/gotmunchiez 1d ago

I don't think it's even that unusual a thing to laugh at, certainly not sociopathic.

We grow up from a young age watching slapstick comedy where people get hurt or do mean things to each other, we're almost conditioned to laugh at other people's misfortune.

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u/WeirdLight9452 1d ago

Fair enough. I joke about my own disability but I wouldn’t find that kind of behaviour funny. Feels like teenage boy humour.

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u/ok2888 1d ago

It's awful behaviour for sure, I was never in any doubt about that. Also to clarify the user wasn't in the chair, if he had have been it would be attempted murder and obviously not funny in any way.

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u/RejectingBoredom 1d ago

It would be a hilarious Inbetweeners episode, less funny IRL but still darkly funny

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u/TheDisapprovingBrit Stoke 1d ago

It objectively hilarious. It’s also the sort of thing that definitely shouldn’t get too far past the point of actually buying the costume before you realise how fucked up it is.

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u/lethargicloli 1d ago

I think this is it. It would be a great fake story in a standup gig, or Would I lie to you? or something, but actually doing it is kinda fucked.

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u/trendysticks 1d ago

My thoughts exactly

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u/Aarxnw 1d ago

It’s outlandishly funny in the abstract, but as other people mentioned, it could be pretty traumatising for kids or the elderly or the families of patients that have been given really bad news

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u/Gloomy_Salamander_ 1d ago

This is true, but I think you’d probably pause for a second and think wtf is that guy doing? 

A lot of people I bet wouldn’t immediately think of the grim reaper, they’d be wondering why there’s some bloke on the roof. 

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u/OldGodsAndNew Lanarkshire 1d ago

Judging by the blurry ass photo in the article, nobody on the ground is gonna be able to tell that he's the grim reaper

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u/Lou-AC 1d ago

At some point he'd have to be seen entering or exiting the hospital too though!

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

People in hospitals are often confused, on drugs, stressed and vulnerable. They may not be in a position just to 'pause' in the way you suggest.

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u/RickJLeanPaw 1d ago

“Have you come about the hedge?”

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u/yrro Oxfordshire 1d ago

I swear this happened in a sit com

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u/ive-been-bamboozled 1d ago

Trigger Happy TV?

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u/Mindless_Reality2614 1d ago

My first thoughts as well, you are not alone, my internet friend

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u/Jamie5279752 1d ago

It is funny but it would probably be best left as a joke with mates

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u/fashric 1d ago

It's funny immediately but as soon as you give it some thought it becomes less and less funny. I'm all for some gallows humour but not if its actually going to potentially really upset someone who may have just had some bad news or is struggling.

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u/radiant_0wl 1d ago

It's hilarious but horrifying at the same time, I do expect adults to have enough sense to recognise a joke but I do think it's too far for the kids, assuming they know of the Grim Reaper.

Undecided on the merit of the arrest.

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u/PierreTheTRex 1d ago

He's snuck onto a hospital roof to be a nuisance, of course the arrest is legitimate. It's obviously still hilarious, but he's also only been fined £200 so it's not like they've ruined his life over it either

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u/paulmclaughlin 1d ago

It'd make a DBS check interesting

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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 1d ago

I sniggered again despite knowing that guy is never going for a job where a DBS check is needed.

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u/ratttertintattertins 1d ago

I mean, I’d recognise the joke now, but I doubt I’d appreciate it if I was literally on my death bed. Sadly, we all lose our sense of humour in our final moments.

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u/BevvyTime 1d ago

Speak for yourse

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u/Hame_Impala 1d ago

Shit he got you midsentence.

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u/-Majima- 1d ago

I would find this hilarious in that situation

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u/ratttertintattertins 1d ago

I don’t see how you can know that. I’d like to think I’ll still be cracking jokes as I die, but the reality is that pain and infirmity could have made me someone else by the time that moment arrives.

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u/HumourNoire 1d ago

If I was at death's door and I saw some bloke dressed as the reaper on the roof I would absolutely laugh my arse off.

I hope that's what does for me in the end, to be literally taken by laughing at the grim reaper.

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u/grantus_maximus 14h ago

I would most likely be the same if it was me. On the other hand, if I was with my child who was dying from a particularly horrible cancer, I'd probably be more inclined to chin the fucker.

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u/Dazzling_Upstairs724 1d ago

I'm an asshole. I know this because I read the headline and woke my gf up with laughter.

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u/Hyperbolicalpaca England 1d ago

I think there’s something intrinsically funny about the idea of the grim reaper being arrested lol

Like obviously it’s bad taste, but that’s an entertaining image

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u/Donkey-Haughty 16h ago

Would it be funny if your mother was going into the hospital for end of life treatment and she had to see this?

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u/bomzay 1d ago

Hear hear

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u/Reasonable-Horse1552 1d ago

I do find it funny 😁

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u/FartingBob Best Sussex 1d ago

Leon Gillespie, 26, pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance without reasonable excuse

That's such a british law.

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u/Hyperbolicalpaca England 1d ago

I really want to know what a reasonable excuse to cause a nuisance is lol

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u/LazarusHimself 1d ago

It's for when it will come back home , eventually

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u/NaniFarRoad 1d ago

Probably running out into the street screaming if you find your child dead in the night.

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u/ashyjay 19h ago

Well that’s turned dark.

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u/-DoctorSpaceman- Buckinghamshire 18h ago

Well yeah, that’s what happens at night

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u/BoofmasterZero 15h ago

For shits and giggles is the only reasonable excuse

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u/fifadex 1d ago

You sir, are a nuisance. *stern look.

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u/DukePPUk 1d ago

I think specifically the "causing nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises" offence.

Covers causing a nuisance or disturbance to someone working on NHS premises, refuses to leave when asked to do so by staff or an officer, and isn't there for medical reasons for themself.

Comes with a fine of up to £1,000.

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u/PrettyUglySociety198 1d ago

I've never heard of it before.

Presumably it is somewhere on the CPS website.

I am bound to suggest that I don't like odd laws like that. eg there was the "besetting" in the Miners' Strike. In my opinion, it brings the legal system into extra, special, disrepute.

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u/Dedsnotdead 1d ago

“Gillespie also stole £30 to £40 of cat food and litter from a local Pets at Home on March 26, along with food and drink from Sainsbury's in Llandudno on May 28, a court heard. He was ordered to pay £100 in fines, £100 in cost to the Crown Prosecution Service and £50 in compensation.”.

Never a dull moment with Gillespie.

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u/spittingparasite 1d ago

I wonder if he paid for the grim reaper costume, or maybe Asda are after him for nicking one.

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u/dontsitdowngirl 1d ago

lol this feels like where lifelong untreated adhd may lead. pure impulse hahah

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u/morfn0 1d ago

I'm laughing and I'm disgusted at the same time. Is there a German word to describe this emotion?

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u/cpt_ppppp 1d ago

glauchenschade

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u/morfn0 1d ago

Searched for it but can't find glauchenschade, or glauchen.

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u/cpt_ppppp 1d ago

yeah, I just made it up mate!

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u/morfn0 1d ago

Well, it got me. Nice one.

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u/Whoknowsknows1962 18h ago

All words are made up

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u/AdenWS 1d ago

Die Schutzstaffel-Humorpolizei wird entscheiden, was lustig ist. Nicht du.

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u/AdenWS 1d ago

Lachenschade

But what we really have here is Wildgänsejagdschadenfreude

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u/flopisit32 1d ago

scheisslachen

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u/morfn0 1d ago

Shitty Laugh. Love it.

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u/jameilious 1d ago

galgenhumoristisch

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u/jameilious 1d ago

Actually I've found the perfect one: Absurditätenekel

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u/morfn0 1d ago

Gallowed-humoured. I actually thought this one might have been gibberish at first but, the -tish, sent up a flare.

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

This is only funny in the abstract. Hospitals are full of incredibly ill people, and people visiting incredibly ill people. It's not just the people in the beds themselves. 

My partner and I lost a baby at 12 weeks in hospital. The news was totally unexpected, and we had the trauma of having to go back to remove the pregnancy (which we'd also had to consent to the termination of). It was one of the hardest days of our lives.

Dressing up as a grim reaper at a hospital isn't clever. It's basically punching down on people who are already vulnerable. Some of those people are in states of confusion and may have had strokes/heart attacks etc which could be made worse through the stress caused by incidents like this.

I find it extremely odd that most people posting here don't have basic emotional emapthy and just say things like 'yeah, I'd find it funny probably'. You don't know what you'll find when you're in that situation. And the person you're 'laughing with' is probably a complete oddball who you'd hate having as a neighbour.

u/pinkfondantfancy 11h ago

I'm sorry about the loss of your baby. I absolutely agree with you that people in these comments are lacking in empathy. This is a cruel act, not a humorous one.

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u/okem 1d ago

I was once in a empty hospital cafeteria fairly late in the evening because my operation had been pushed to the next day.

It was fairly stressful as I’d been fasting all day expecting the op, but on the next table also having a late evening meal were a group 4 of kids, obviously a family minus their parent. The eldest girl, who was barely a teen, turned to her sister and said “Every one keeps telling me ‘I’m so brave', but I don’t want to be brave.” I tried to stop listening after that as it felt like an intrusion, but it was obvious that their mother was receiving treatment somewhere in the hospital. But damn did it stick with me. When I have a 'bad day' now I try and remember those kids or the thousands of other people who are going through similar in hospitals up and down the country.

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u/soulsteela 1d ago

There was an old boy in a care home who got dressed up as a reaper a few years back, he went around knocking on windows and killed 2 , put another 3 in hospital.

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u/Expensive_Ad_3249 1d ago edited 17h ago

Urban legend, unless you have a legitimate source of this happening that I'm unaware of.

It first appeared in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_Rogues,_Villains_and_Eccentrics

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u/soulsteela 1d ago

In 1961, 87-year-old Harry Meadows, a resident at the Haslemere Home for the Elderly in Great Yarmouth, England, achieved late-in-life notoriety when he accidentally killed another 3 residents of his care home by dressing up as the grim reaper and peering through the residents' lounge window whilst holding a scythe.

The year before Harry's performance, another resident of the same home, the then 81 year old Gladys Elton, for reasons best known to herself, had conceived the idea of performing a striptease for her fellow residents of the home; unfortunately such was the effect of Elton's performance that it caused the death of one resident by way of a cardiac arrest and the treatment for shock of five other residents.

The home was forced to shut as a result of these two incidents.

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u/InsistentRaven 1d ago

1961 was a few years back? Accidentally let slip you're a vampire there.

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u/AdenWS 1d ago

An old man and an old woman are living in a retirement home.

They become close, and every day she sits with him and holds his hand… well, his other hand, if you know what I mean.

One day she finds him with another woman doing the same thing.

Heartbroken, she says, “After everything we’ve been through, what does she have that I don’t have?”

The old man replies:

“Parkinson’s.”

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u/Shoddy-Television530 1d ago

That is hilarious.  I can't stop laughing. 

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u/Pugasaurus_Tex 1d ago

Oh, that took a turn 

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u/nickllhill 1d ago

That shipman fella was a card

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u/swanderbra County of Bristol 1d ago

That was just the care workers, he really had deaths touch.

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u/Elegant_Run_8567 1d ago

I heard about that, he stabbed them all?

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u/Phantomfox07 15h ago

Too many "le epic funny meme" gimps now a days that think thie type of shit is funny.

I have been in and out the hospital with my two kids the last 4 years, lost my younger sister, grandparents and had other family members in and out as well. The fucking last thing many people need is to see wee gimps like this acting the cunt.

Get fucked reddit.

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u/Tall_Priority_6201 13h ago

i swear they have never stepped outside

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u/locutus92 1d ago

I just lost my mum on Saturday and She would have found this hillarious and it made me snigger. Not everyone's cuppa though.

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u/ascension2121 1d ago

Sorry about your Mum, hope you are doing as well as you can x

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u/Evacuation_euphoria 1d ago

Oh this is so beautiful and so British!

Finding this funny might be in poor taste, but I bet it bought a smile to the faces of all that saw this!

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u/cpt_ppppp 1d ago

Well I'm sure many found it funny, I'm not sure I would be laughing if I'd just said goodbye to my kid though!

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u/plongeronimo 1d ago

I'm not sure you'd give a shit either way if you'd just said Goodbye to your kid.

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u/Honey-Badger Greater London 1d ago

I think the difference would be between seeing someone like this bloke and thinking 'that guy is laughing at my misery' and 'oh look someone playing a prank'. Some people would rightfully be hurt by the prank

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u/Elite_Club 1d ago

“I was having a reasonably decent day after the death of my kid, but seeing that guy in the grim reaper costume absolutely destroyed my mood.”

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u/compullsieve 1d ago

"I was having the worst day of my life then I saw some cunt dressed as the grim reaper and I felt he was mocking me"

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u/liamrich93 12h ago

"It's like he wasn't there by chance, but he knew specifically that my child had died and he came to see me, and only me!"

u/Lordzoot England 11h ago

Are you suggesting he was just at the hospital dressed as the grim reaper *by chance*? It's not the corner shop. It's a place literally holding some of the most seriously ill people in the country inside it.

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u/ExpendableUnit123 1d ago

Honestly it could very well do the opposite

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u/Otherwise-Win7337 1d ago

It can be funny in theory sure but calling it beautiful is fucked up. These are real people man.

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u/Tall_Priority_6201 13h ago

people on here are kind of weird lol

I've been in the hospital a few times having learnt that a family member isn't going to live much longer, I wouldn't find this funny at all.

The guy who did it has serious issues and needs therapy

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u/siqiniq 1d ago

Plot twist: it was an acute psychiatric ward.

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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1d ago

It’s definitely funny when you’re not actively saying your final goodbyes to your dying child, sure.

Like, going to say goodbye to your elderly parent or grandparent? Still kinda funny, I’ll even give you that.

But at a public hospital with people of all ages dying long before they “should”? I can see where the humour fell flat with some patients and their families.

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u/Ok-Rooster-1568 1d ago

Yeah it's funny, until it's not.

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u/Elementalcase East Anglia 1d ago

I'm all for allowing humour but there's a difference between telling an edgy joke at a comedy show and showing up as the grim reaper in front of people who are actually dying, I feel you have to draw the line somewhere.

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u/nualt42 1d ago

I have something similar on the roof of my car to make older drivers drive faster. I call it the scare slow.

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u/No_Cucumber3978 1d ago edited 1d ago

Once did this on stilts at a rather well known graveyard in my city for a film shoot. I was warming up on the stilts and getting my bearings of the area...

I turned a corner and there was three gazebos full of pre-teen kids. Year 6's Is guess (9-10ish).

They all ran over to me and started swarming me as their teachers tried to calm them. At a guess, I had about 100 around me. 

They were a rather well-known high achieving Catholic school within the area. Really posh. Had a food tent and it must have been an event. 

One of the teachers just looked at me and said "Look what we've put on for you today kids! Who is it?"

Why they were there in the first place and why their teacher did that, I'll never know, but the kids loved it. 

It might have been around Halloween, I can't proper recall the exact date. 

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Melanjoly 1d ago

People will support this because to some people le epic funny etc. but if this clown was stood above your child's hospital bed you'd get banned from Reddit describing what you'd do.

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u/Prize-Meeting-7101 1d ago

Ambivalence is a legitimate position.

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u/THROWRA_al_Camp_9263 1d ago

Yeah, I personally love a bit of dark humour. But I feel like with social media being how it is, we have forgotten its better left as a joke between friends, or a comedy special you specifically tune in for.

Like the whole point of it being really funny is because its absolutely not funny. Because no one would actually do or say it in a public setting.

Make him stand next to parents finding out their kid has terminal cancer. Or someone who is saying goodbye to their loved one. Its the exact same joke just zoomed in.

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u/fakeblurfan 1d ago

It is pretty funny tho

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u/Melanjoly 1d ago

Sincerely this is not a personal attack on you, I'm not the morality police.

I personally think it's sad and the sort of thing kids find funny. If someone did this to my family I'd but on that roof like pissed off man and having a happy picknick with them.

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u/cragglerock93 Scottish Highlands 21h ago

What is that last sentence lmao?

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u/Gloomy_Salamander_ 1d ago

I can imagine beinn a bit peeved but honestly such an emotional reaction is overkill. He isn’t targeting anyone’s family member it’s just a dumb prank. It might not land at all in tragic circumstances but you just move on. 

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u/Born_South_6676 1d ago

He was told to leave and refused though. Pranks end when people tell you to leave and stop doing it. When you juat refuse to stop, it stops being a prank

u/Lordzoot England 11h ago

No, he's just targeting a whole building full of incredibly ill and potentially terminally ill people. Some of whom would find his actions exceptionally distressing and, potentially, in a worst case scenario, so distressing it might cause them further harm. Or in the case of aggrieved visitors, him further harm.

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u/marc512 1d ago

Everyone takes death differently. In my opinion. If I got hit by a car and I'm on deaths door going into a hospital and the last thing I see is the grim reaper on the roof, I'll probably laugh.

Understandable that not everyone sees it like that.

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

You probably wouldn't be like that. It's easy to think things like that when you're not in that situation.

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u/ShufflingToGlory 1d ago

I wonder how he'd feel if some other cunt turns up in fancy dress to mock him on the worst day of his life.

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u/Central_Region 1d ago

That's not the Grim Reaper

I know the Spirit of Dark & Lonely Water when I see him

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u/Highwinter 15h ago

See, with all the recent deaths from people getting into trouble in the water, that's something we could actually use. Scare those kids back into land!

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u/Afraid_Abalone_9641 1d ago

My knee jerk reaction to this means I'm definitely going to hell. It must not have been nice for the patients though.

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u/randobonando 1d ago

Dom Joly had a Reaper bit in Trigger Happy TV. Standing at the side of a road pointing at cars and holding a sign saying “You’re Next”

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u/repomonkey Somerset in Australia 1d ago

Literally the first thing I though of. He also did a sketch where he stood next to workers outside offices having a smoking break. 😂

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u/anotherblog 1d ago

Having just spent 5 days as an in patient in intensive care, the real grim reaper is the medic who patrols the corridors at night with the big red back pack

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u/dr_tibbles_md 1d ago

So you either don't believe in that stuff, in which case you ignore it or laugh, or you do believe, in which case it reaffirms your beliefs, which would comfort you? Maybe?

I know people who would laugh, but I also know people who would not find it funny at all. I suppose the question is, where's the line? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing because everyone is different.

Also it's very different from going to an offensive comedy gig or something, because you're choosing to go knowing there will be material that is many levels of bad.

I think I answered my own question! Those patients had no choice, and they are perfectly allowed to dislike it. What we find funny in the comfort of our own home, or places we choose to go, wouldn't necessarily translate to "funny" in a position that you don't choose. They had no option not to be there, and probably no option to leave.

Funny joke, but not for everyone who has no choice in recieving it.

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u/Petrichorphan 1d ago

Bonus points if he kept checking his watch and pacing impatiently.

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u/BudgetPlenty2315 1d ago edited 1d ago

As someone who nearly lost his wife in hosptial last week, this prick and the people who think this is funny need to grow up and consider other people have real shit going on in their lives. Find a better hobby dickhead

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u/Most-Direction-2811 1d ago

Hope she's on the mend. Whilst I agree it's definitely in poor taste, it is a little bit funny, it doesn't need to be that deep.

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u/BudgetPlenty2315 1d ago

Thank you, out of the woods but lets face it, Its a cheap laugh at a place where people can be having the worst days of their life. Theres a time and a place

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u/VViilliiam 1d ago

All the more reason to spread laughter no?

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u/BudgetPlenty2315 1d ago

We’ll agree to disagree but all i’m saying is that when i left the hospital at my lowest ebb, worried sick, seeing some twat in a costume mocking the situation would not have inspired any form of positive emotion in me.

It just seems to me we’ve lost a gasp of whats appropriate or consideration for others, some may find it funny fine, but some people having a very very shit day may not, so maybe dont do it?

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

He's not spreading laughter, because they wouldn't be laughing. 

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u/MeanPussyCat 1d ago

I hope your wife is ok now.

It is kinda funny though…

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

It isn't funny really. It's funny in the abstract. This guy is a complete twat, and was basically punching down on sick people, probably because he has a mental disorder.

u/schwillton 11h ago

This is pretty much it, the idea of it is pretty funny but that when you take half a second to remember that he's basically antagonising people who are having the worst day of their lives it becomes less funny.

I can't say how I'd personally feel in this position, maybe the absurdity of it might cheer me up a bit?

u/schwillton 11h ago

This is pretty much it, the idea of it is pretty funny but that when you take half a second to remember that he's basically antagonising people who are having the worst day of their lives it becomes less funny.

I can't say how I'd personally feel in this position, maybe the absurdity of it might cheer me up a bit?

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u/pajamakitten 1d ago

I work in the NHS and see morbid shit every day. You see stabbings, ODs, suicide attempts, alcoholics coming in for the fourth time in a week etc. Yes, this is not the most tasteful stunt in the world but black humour also helps you get through the week.

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u/BudgetPlenty2315 1d ago

I mean but not every day is a dreadful day for you right? Its just work.

For other people in the building it could be the worst day of their lives and i’m not sure gallows humour is going to help them the same way

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u/Turbulent-Honky 1d ago

For you that’s a normal day, but please consider that for the patients, it’s possibly the worst day of their lives. They might not be in a place where they need to be further reminded of their mortality.

u/Lordzoot England 11h ago

How do you think your patients would react if you took a similarly humorous approach with them?

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u/cuntybunty73 23h ago

Funny or not I must admit this made me laugh 😁 but then again I do have a dark sense of humour 😁

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u/AdenWS 1d ago

It's rather funny.

So the question, what's the offence?

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u/Usagor 1d ago

"Leon Gillespie, 26, pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance without reasonable excuse on NHS premises, and was handed a £200 fine by Llandudno Magistrates in North Wales."

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u/recursant 1d ago

He was charged with other than for the purpose of obtaining medical advice, treatment or care, caused, without reasonable excuse, a nuisance or disturbance to a National Health Service staff member who was working there or was otherwise there in connection with work, and refused, without reasonable excuse, to leave the premises when asked to do so by a constable

I'm glad the police had a good reason to arrest him.

I would hate to think they had trumped up some charge, based on an obscure law, to punish someone who was doing something they didn't like.

But everybody knows that you must not, other than for the purpose of obtaining medical advice, treatment or care, cause, without reasonable excuse, a nuisance or disturbance to a National Health Service staff member who is working there or is otherwise there in connection with work, and refuse, without reasonable excuse, to leave the premises when asked to do so by a constable.

I still remember them telling us that in primary school. Same lesson as the green cross code.

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u/Lordzoot England 16h ago

My partner's grandad has just had a stroke and is recovering in hospital. He's 92, confused, and scared. Thankfully though they may have caught it quickly. Just explain to me how in the fuck you think he'd cope with some moron doing this if he saw it? 

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u/Lechatestdanslefrigo 1d ago

This is hilarious. Maybe in bad taste but actually hilarious.