Justice for ball retriever?

Was six month sentence for 'stealing golf balls' fair?

Bob Warters's picture
Mon, 29 Apr 2002
Justice for ball retriever?
Justice for ball retriever?
News of the World campaign.

The decision to jail Mark Collinson for six months for stealing golf balls he recovered from a lake appears wholly unjustified.

It also calls into question the discrepancy between the penalty justifying the crime when sex-offenders, thugs and drunk drivers receive similar or even more lenient sentences for far more serious offences.

Collinson (36) had been collecting abandonned golf balls from lakes at golf courses for ten years, he claimed – even declaring his £1,000 a year earnings from it on his tax return – when police arrested him at Whetstone Golf Club in Leicestershire.

He had been diving in the dark, deep depths to recover the balls one night when police stepped in.

The father of two from Chorley in Lancashire claimed the activity was legitimate and that he was merely recycling balls that had been abandonned by golfers.

Justice for ball retriever?
Greetham Valley 'Lakes' course.

However, Judge Richard Bray decided his 10p per ball sideline was worthy of a six month jail sentence.

Collinson’s wife Annette says her husband’s lawyers are planning to appeal and now the News of the World is backing a campaign to free him.

The topic of golf ball recovery has always been a murky area within the law.

It is generally recognised that while a golfer who loses a ball is allowed to search for it – the Rules allow for five minutes – once it is abandonned it becomes the property of the course owner.

Many of us retrieve balls we find while searching for our own and usually re-cycle them back into our own collection or pass them on to colleagues.

I have yet to meet anyone who hands them in to the pro shop as ‘lost property’ – unless, of course the owner is clearly identified with the name Tiger, Woosie, Shark, or Sergio printed on it!

The lake ball industry is regarded as big business with over four million retrieved from water hazards on UK courses every year.

At my own course, Greetham Valley, in Rutland, the owner Frank Hinch, reveals that over 15,000 were retrieved from his Lakes and Valley courses last year.

"A diver comes about four times a year to retrieve balls from the six lakes," he told me. "They take the balls away, clean them and return the equivalent of 25 per-cent to us which we re-sell at £1 each."

It seems a fair arrangement, especially when the income is invested back into the course and helps towards maintaining it to a high standard.

So does Frank think the punishment for Mr Collinson fits the crime?

"The penalty was a bit heavy but I think they have made him bit of a scapegoat. It certainly made a headline," he admits.

"However, it was probably done to make everyone realise that balls belong to the place where they are left. The law says that once they are abandonned they become the property of the course.

"If everyone went diving for golf balls and re-sold them it would make a mockery of the law," said Frank, who agreed it could have serious implications over insurance if golfers were allowed to wade in after everyone else's wayward shots.

Justice for ball retriever?
Popular graveyard - Collingtree's 18th.

"We have never had a problem here with people falling in looking for balls although a couple have had frightening experiences when a diver emerged as they were putting out on the green," he laughed.

Colin Montgomerie and Lee Westwood have allegedly joined the campaign to free the jailed amateur diver but with the law very clear on what constitutes theft, it’s unlikely it will cause many ripples in the legal system let alone on lakes that provide a penultimate resting place for golf balls.

What do you think? Was Mark Collinson treated fairly? Is the law an ass in this case? Have you ever fallen in retrieving a ball or seen it happen to a colleague? Tell us on the Forum.