The two teenagers walked into Blackburn Cathedral, scribbled racist and sexual comments in some prayer books and tore the pages out of others. They found a priceless John the Baptist cross and bent it out of shape. It cost £3000 to repair.

Then they walked out.

Just an everyday tale of the vandalism and sheer mindless destruction prevalent on our streets today and so common that the authorities tend to shrug shoulders and factor it into normal running costs without expending too much effort in tracking down the offenders.

But the Cathedral staff didn’t have to contact Sherlock Holmes to solve this particular crime. The two 16 year olds proudly wrote their names in the Visitor’s Book, their collars were felt and they found themselves up before Austin Molloy, chairman of the bench at Blackburn Magistrates’ Court.

No soft touch was Magistrate Molloy.

One of them was given an 18-month supervision order and a £1,500 fine after pleading guilty to damaging the cross at a hearing last month. The other had a 12-month supervision order and a £100 fine after pleading guilty to defacing and damaging the books.

But Mr Molloy had not finished. He gave them a piece of his mind.

“This court is disgusted by the mindless destruction you have caused. Normal people would consider you absolute scum.

“If it was in our power, we would have you both stand in front of the congregation at 10am on Sunday and explain your words and actions to them to see if they could understand it, because we can’t.”

In every factory, workshop, office and farm in the land ordinary everyday people gave three silent cheers for Austin Molloy, a 57 year old company director with 18 years experience as a magistrate. At last a Justice of the Peace with a quaintly old fashioned view of the law.

“They needed to be told off. The courts need to start looking after the victims rather than the criminals.”

Amen to that – but, regrettably not a feeling shared by the clerk to the court, usually a legal professional whose job it is to inform the lay magistrates about the law. She jumped up and announced to an astonished court that Mr Molloy had used “inappropriate language” and encouraged the mothers of the teenagers to make an official complaint.No doubt the teenagers themselves thought that Christmas had come early – they were suddenly transformed from vandals to victims with the possible prospect of a tidy sum of money as compensation for “hurt feelings”

I’d love to report that the higher officials at the court awarded Mr Molloy their full backing and gave Christine Dean, the clerk of the court, a short and sharp reminder of the facts of life.

Dream on….this is UK 2010. Mr Molloy has been suspended and a very large question mark hangs over his future as a magistrate.

In my alternative universe, however, he would be summoned by the Queen and knighted for his services to common sense and his statue, financed by the subscriptions of the grateful citizens of Blackburn, would be erected in the Cathedral precinct. Engraved on the plinth would be a dedication reflecting the feelings of everybody in the UK except the handful of spineless panjandrums who, regrettably, appear to dominate the legal profession.

“In honour of one of the few brave men and women in our courts who are willing to tell it straight and to the point “