Carnation sellers are nothing new

Sir, Further to your article about “carnation sellers,” as long as almost ten years ago I had my pocket picked by “rose sellers” in the gardens below the cathedral in Palma. The following day I went to the police station to report the theft and was walking back to my car parked by the harbour when I realised it was almost exactly 24 hours after I had been robbed, and so I went back into the gardens to see if they were still there. Lo and behold they were and I watched them in action through the viewfinder of my camera, but one of their lookouts must have recognised me from the previous day and shouted a warning to her colleagues. Four of them got in a line in front of me, turned their backs to me and pulled their skirts over their heads and I still have the photograph of four pairs of “off white” gypsy bloomers. After I had informed their bemused intended victims of their close escape the gypsies walked off down the street, gesticulating and shouting obscenities at me for spoiling their pitch. All the time this was going on a police patrol car was sitting about 150 metres away and not taking a blind bit of notice.
I cannot believe that after all this time these crimes still go on with impunity under the noses of the authorities but that is perhaps one of the reasons why I later chose to by a house in Minorca and not Majorca! Ian Spiby, Kirknewton