Dinner Lady Recipe Ring Cracked

Dawn raids were carried out early yesterday morning on five Arbroath addresses belonging to dinner ladies suspected of trading cake and pastry recipes over the internet. The suspects, all in their mid to late sixties, were found to be up and about reading Take a Break, knitting tea cosys and talking about the weather. Special branch officers who have been monitering e-mail traffic between the five dinner ladies were overjoyed with the arrests and seizure of thousands of recipes.

Cake Mistress

The recipes were found to be stored on the hard drive of a personal computer belonging to Dorothy 'Dot' McManus who is thought to have masterminded the whole operation. McManus who is reputedly known in the recipe trade as the 'Cake Mistress' or the 'Princess of Pastry' was also found to have numerous sweet pastry recipes from Thailand and the Philippines, some of them only a couple of weeks old. Unfortunately, Betty McTavish, another suspect and also mother of five children and twelve grandchildren is believed to have fled the country before the raid, possibly to the United States where recipe trading is rife.

Headless Gingerbread Men
Police also found a digital video camera in McTavish's flat which showed images of her baking a tray of scones. Detectives believe these images had been shown live on the internet to other dinner ladies and recipe users. "We've known for a long time that this has been going on", said detective inspector Graham Dobbin, who has been working tirelessly in the criminal recipe squad for more than seven years. "The internet enables people to transfer recipes far more easily, organised groups have become more ruthless in their methods. I've seen some shocking things in my time in this job, over-syruped flapjacks and ginger bread men without heads. It's disgusting."

Jamaica Cake Yardies

It is also believed that criminal and terrorist organisations such as the IRA, Jamaican Yardies and the Luftewaffe have benefitted from illegal activities in the cake industry. Calls from cake appreciation societies and village fete organisers have called on the government to ban any illegal recipe internet sites and have called for tougher sentences for offenders. "Clearly this is something of a concern" said Kathy Planetoid the cake "Czar" for the newly created Sweet and Savoury task force, "We can't have recipes falling into the wrong dangerous hands, we don't want this spreading to potato snacks or waffles. Or god only knows what will happen."

Buns
The Glasgow arrests follow arrests made earlier last year in other parts of the country. The entire staff of Harringtons Bakery in Rochester Kent were arrested and released without charge four months ago, and two weeks ago a lorry with a Bulgarian number plate full of Belgian buns were found to be out of date in Dover. Staff at the Glasgow school where the five suspects worked part-time declined to comment on the arrests and were left to make alterations to the canteen menu.

- The Chrust reported that story -