Different approach from Spanish judge

Salon burglar avoids jail but gets the chair (Graham Keeley in Madrid, for The Times)

January 27 2017, 12:01am,

A judge in Spain has ordered a teenager who broke into a hair salon to go on a hairdressing courseGetty Images
A teenager who broke into a hairdressing salon in Granada has been ordered to go on a six-month stylist course and then cut the hair of the judge who handed down the sentence.

Judge Emilio Calatayud, who sits in the city’s youth court, ordered that the 16-year-old burglar learn the trade. In case the boy is tempted to give the judge an inappropriate style, Judge Calatayud has warned him that he is expecting a professional trim, or the youngster faces being convicted of disobedience.

The youth, who obtained no school qualifications, broke into the salon last May, causing damage amounting to €600. He also stole a hairdryer.

The judge is known in Spain as el padrazo — the adoring father — because he has spared many young criminals jail, making them pay their debt to society in other ways. One boy who liked to draw was sentenced to spend 50 hours creating a 15-page comic that told the story of a boy called Enrique who rode his motorbike without insurance — the crime of which he had been convicted. He then had to show his work to paraplegic patients who had been injured in car crashes.