Abbot Charged over Faulty Prayer-Wheel

Dzogchen Khenpo Gyatso Rimpoche, 19th incarnate tulku of the Jubtrul lineage and head of the Diamond Dharma Buddhist Monastery, Woresley, Kent, was charged with gross negligence at Kent Crown Court today, in connection with a faulty prayer-wheel.

Mr Gyatso stands accused of failing to properly maintain the 200 ton rosewood device, which is designed to pray for good karma and blessings. Regular servicing, prosecutors claim, could have averted last spring’s disaster in which a restraining bolt on the central camshaft became abraded and snapped, causing the giant apparatus of veneration to whirl around the monastery praying for a series of inappropriate boons.

“First I felt a rain of blossoms,” said Jenny Miller, tourist, who was caught in the stampede. “A minor miracle! I thought. I was just wondering who could have prayed for a thing of such fragrant beauty, when it came hurtling down the corridor at me and turned my cheeks into serpents - and my thoughts to liberation. There were people screaming everywhere, and monks stirred slightly from their yogic postures.”

She wasn’t the only one to suffer.

“It cast my soul into a herd of swine,” said monastery bouncer, Joanne Peterson.

“I saw smoke and incantations pouring from the lip of the device,” said visiting sage Wong Boying.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” said neophyte Dilbo Trugs, who was meditating on transience when the automated worshipping-device worked loose from its fittings. “It just seemed to just go wild, praying willy-nilly for whatever came into its mind. Later I was shot by police. I don’t know why.”

The prayer took on a darker twist, however, when the machine broke into the monks’ praying mantis collection and started praying for what they pray for.

“It was at this stage that we started to become concerned for the wellbeing of the three worlds,” confirmed rustic rappers Grosset Butterworth and Amour Spudder, who happened to have exchanged jobs with the G’Gondarrk, Chief Constable of Kent police, for a day that day, for TV. “Those are savage insects. It was now praying for things like peace, equality, justice and freedom. When it put in a request for a world with no greed or hunger, we knew we had to act.”

But defence lawyers argue that the Reverend Dharma Master is not to blame. According to Pauline Tandem QC, it was “merely a vigorous prayer-cycle initiated by an over-exuberant school party that caused the mayhem in the main hall. Although, at first glance, the machine does appear to be chasing monks and chastening terrified members of the public while chanting obscene mantras, this is not the case. In fact, CCTV footage gives a false impression, since the cameras themselves were in a state of panic.”

A number of gods are implicated in the granting, including God (the Christian god) and Coyote (the Plains Indian trickster god), but they are unlikely to be called to testify, as the heavens have no extradition treaty with the UK.

“Perfect” Murder Marred by Loss of Human Life

(Irreparable loss: victim Saunders clubbing with cabinet ministers shortly before his demise.)

Serial killer The Walsingdene Ripper has shocked fans by renouncing his claim to have committed “the perfect murder”.

The brutal poisoning of elderly trust-manager Archibald Saunders was widely regarded as the Ripper’s masterstroke, baffling police and delighting his hardcore of supporters. But it seems there was one thing even this genius of the jugular overlooked.

“When I bumped off Archie, I thought I’d surpassed myself,” the 42 year-old slayer said. “There wasn’t a shred of evidence to connect me to the scene. Unfortunately, I hadn’t reckoned with the horrific consequences.”

Although the poison used was powerful and virtually untraceable, it had an awful effect on Mr Saunders. “He suffered terribly for the better part of a day. He was in agony, delirious, vomiting blood, and wracked by painful muscular spasms. There’s nothing perfect about that.

“And while I did inherit Mr Saunders’ fortune, thanks to a legal loophole, this pales into insignificance next to the trauma I inflicted on his loved ones: scheming wife Mary, jilted lover Lynn, his twelve disinherited daughters, Harold the army buddy he robbed and left for dead in Oman, vengeful golem Bill, and not forgetting his good old basset hound Horatio, loyal to the last in spite of the beatings. They all had reasons to want him dead, but, at the end of the day, were just too fond of him to go through with it.”

Mr Saunders’ death is the first, and so far only, killing to have been awarded the prestigious title of Perfect Murder by FIMA (the International Federation of Murder and Assassination), and only the fifth to be deemed a Very British Murder by the British Board of Bludgeoners.

“Each is a killing of outstanding cultural or historic significance to the life of these isles,” said BBB Slaughterer General, Dennis Exmore. “They are all exceptionally high quality murders. The Ripper has raised some important concerns, and we will look into a few other slayings now to see if any of them might be flawed in the same way. But I’m sure it’s just a blip. In fact, we’ve already put it behind us. And I’m very proud of that. Immensely proud, as I am of everything I’ve ever done. I urge people not to mind really.

“They should certainly not be extra wary if one of our members approaches them with a scalpel. There will be a legitimate reason for this.”

Saintly Girl Damned by Clerical Blunder

Heaven is to compensate the family of ‘good girl’ Abigail Hate with two free seats and a laudatory song. Abigail, a happy child known for her kindness, died rescuing a friend’s pet terrapin after it became lodged on high voltage cables outside her home in Butterworth, Suffolk. But scandal erupted in June when it emerged that trainee seraphim had accidentally damned Abigail to everlasting torment.

“I couldn’t believe it when the results came through,” said her spiritual mentor, Sunday school teacher Harry Starkley, whose office is filled with graphic depictions of the Netherworld. “Abigail was such a good girl, always lending a helping hand. If she can end up in the fires of Gehenna, what hope is there for wicked folk like us?”

“At first we thought nothing of it,” said village vicar, and vampire, Hillary Million, who stumbled upon the tragic scene, having been attracted by the scent of blood and the amphibian’s plaintive cries. “The little one was buried with full Brownie honours and we had a good old knees up in the High Street after, with British flags and hats and everything. And then this...”

A court has ruled that the admin angels were not given appropriate guidance in the use of new damning-machines which came on line earlier this year, and an enquiry found the heavenly host were under increasing pressure to deliver on perdition targets.

“Corners were cut,” summed up a group of travelling judges, who happened to drop in on the last day of the hearing.

“The computerised system was designed to speed up applications to eternal bliss,” said Dominion Esphixiel, Paradise’s Complaints Tzar, “but for Abigail it meant a speedy descent into hell. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to bring her back. We hope though that this gesture will go some way to mollifying the family. Abigail’s parents will now be able to commit awful acts with impunity, and angels will sing their praises.”

But Abigail’s mother Lamia Hate is furious about allegations that seraphs had been ‘playing chicken’ with the devices shortly before the her damnation, purposefully seeing how close they could get a soul to hell and still hoik it back.

“It’s a bleeding liberty,” she said. “The license to do wrong is a Godsend, especially in sleepy Butterworth. But they can’t fob us off with that. We’ve spoken to Abby (or it might be Amy now, or Amélie, or Amalorum?) personally through one of this country’s top mediums (on a no-invoke, no-fee basis) and she’s literally seething!”