Anthony Bray, a 48-year-old fan of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda, has recently experienced firsthand the consequences of rising knife crime in the UK and the bordering-on-paranoia awareness it created among the British police after receiving a 4-month prison sentence for carrying around a 6-inch (around 15 cm) toy replica of Link’s Master Sword from the aforementioned game series.
As stated by the Warwickshire police, Bray was arrested on June 8 for “carrying a bladed article”, which the perpetrator of this heinous crime bought online as a fidget toy to keep his hands busy. The fact that it was a toy and Bray’s insistence on having zero intention to attack anyone with it wasn’t enough for the rozzers to let the suspect go, with them stating that, in the end, it was still a sharply pointed item that Bray was carrying openly and that could potentially be used as a weapon and might cause others to fear for their safety.
Besides having to spend four months of his life behind bars, Bray is also legally required to pay a victims’ surcharge of £154 (approximately $200). “We take a zero tolerance to bladed articles in public, and Bray has fallen afoul of this. It is possible to find fidget toys that aren’t six-inch blades. It is possible not to walk down the street holding them out in front of you,” commented Sgt Spellman of the Patrol Investigations Unit.
Despite the comedic tone of this story, it appears that the suspect’s prior criminal history was largely to blame for his receiving a real prison sentence. As reported by Forbes, Anthony Bray wasn’t just an innocent Zelda fan but rather a repeat offender who had already spent four years in prison for a series of burglaries and had numerous run-ins with the law in the 90s. Whether the arresting officers were aware of this fact when they apprehended him for carrying a toy blade is up for debate, but it’s highly likely that Bray’s shady past influenced the court to hand down an actual jail term rather than just a small fine and a stern warning.
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