A young man couldn’t live with his conscience and walked into a Guardia Civil post and confessed to several minor crimes, committed a few years back. The police hadn’t been looking for him – it was purely a voluntary move.

It astounded everybody. Here we are in a time when politicians regularly commit fraud, indulge in corruption and then… deny it all, refuse to resign, and to top it all off, are backed to the hilt by their party colleagues. We are almost immune to tales of bank directors running their banks into the ground, stand around waiting for a public bailout and then waltz off with multi-million pensions… and then along comes a petty thief with a sense of honour, putting so many ‘respectable’ public figures to shame.

This repentant, petty thief in his 20’s, who lives somewhere on the coast of Granada, had stolen two guitars, some jewels, a computer, a mobile phone and an assortment of other items. He even handed over the ones he still had.

Once the Guardia Civil had logged his confession and itemised the returned, stolen objects, they informed the juvenile magistrate – the lad was under 18 when he carried out the acts of theft. However, in the end, there was no need to stand before the magistrate because the misdemeanours had been permanently archived, so that was the end of that. Misdemeanours are prescribe after only one year in Spain.

The Guardia Civil on duty at the time listened in amazement until finally one of them asked, “But why are you doing this?” The lad replied that he felt so guilty that he couldn’t live with it – going to jail was better than living with his conscience.

(News: Costa del Sol, Granada, Andalucia)