14 DAY TRIAL // Most people use social media sites to recount some of their more or less significant daily activities, but since almost everyone can see your online posts, sometimes it’s better to keep things for yourself. Especially if you are planning an armed robbery.
32-year-old Andrew Hennells decided to go online to brag about his plans to break into a store, without realizing that police might connect the dots and link him to the robbery.
It only took the authorities 15 minutes to catch the man after he boasted on Facebook about his endeavor, in a post saying "Doing. Tesco. Over." Not to mention that he had previously uploaded a picture of the kitchen knife he used for the theft.
Furthermore, there is camera footage of the man during the raid, and because he was not wearing a mask to hide his face, the police had no difficulties in recognizing him from his Facebook photos.
No one knows why he bragged online about the robbery
If he had not been so open about his intentions, maybe he would have managed to get away with the £410 (€566/ $599) he stole from a frightened staff member working at Tesco.
Now the man will be spending the next four years in jail since his Facebook confession made it easier to secure a guilty plea.
ITV reports that this was not the man’s first offense of the kind, as he was involved in another robbery in Germany, back in 2002, when he was sentenced to an 18-month detention.
After the armed robbery, the man stole a car from an elderly couple and took off to a nearby pub where the police managed to apprehend him.
This would not be the first time someone gets in trouble because of a Facebook post. A woman was recently arrested because of an online post that one of her followers believed it was a threat addressed to him.