THE Chase viewers have been left scratching their heads after a contestant admitted to having an ‘illegal’ hobby on national telly.
Neil, from London, told host Bradley Walsh that he and his wife love “skipping” in their spare time.
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He explained that they pinch items from people’s skips before taking them home to do up.
Neil, who works as a care worker, said: “My wife and I like to go skipping. That is finding things in skips and re-doing them.
“So we might be on our way out to dinner and we see a house that’s got a skip outside. We might take something, go back and forget dinner and get a take-away.”
Neil says they like to “up-cycle furniture and things like that” and admitted he has flogged things on for cash.
“On Instagram a restaurant near me asked me to make them stuff,” he explained.
“I’d never done it for paid work but thought I’d give it go. I did their planters and then a shop up the road saw them and got in contact with me and said they wanted some of those as well.
“So I have got money from it but I prefer making it for myself.”
Viewers of The Chase were left puzzled by Neil’s remarks, however, as taking items from other people’s skips can be considered against the law.
If a skip is on private land, ‘skippers’ could face prosecution for trespassing.
And according to the law in England and Wales: “A person commits theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it.”
Therefore, if it can be proven that items thrown in a skip have a rightful owner, it is technically illegal to take it.
Taking to Twitter, one shocked viewer of The Chase remarked: “I wouldn’t go on national tv and boast about taking stuff from skips Neil. It’s theft. Anything in the skip belongs to the person who hired the skip until it’s taken away.”
Another said: “Isn’t taking something from a skip without asking illegal?”
A third simply declared: “Skip thief!”
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