{"id":2400,"date":"2018-09-21T09:05:29","date_gmt":"2018-09-21T09:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/australian-strawberries-why-would-someone-hide-a-needle-in-fruit\/"},"modified":"2018-09-21T09:05:29","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T09:05:29","slug":"australian-strawberries-why-would-someone-hide-a-needle-in-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/australian-strawberries-why-would-someone-hide-a-needle-in-fruit\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian strawberries: Why would someone hide a needle in fruit?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div property=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width lead\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"js-image-replace\" alt=\"A needle next to strawberries\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/CA5F\/production\/_103470815_6f4d61b3-e882-4e7d-9d72-b52add989bde.jpg\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\"\/><span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">QUEENSLAND POLICE<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Why are needles being inserted into strawberries?<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Australia is currently searching for a saboteur (or saboteurs) amid a national scare involving the hiding of sewing needles within strawberries.<\/p>\n<p>In one case, a consumer who swallowed a needle had to be treated in hospital. Children and others have reported narrow escapes.<\/p>\n<p>Since the first cases were reported last week, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-australia-45556584\" class=\"story-body__link\">authorities have also stepped up warnings<\/a> of copycat, prank and hoax incidents.<\/p>\n<p>What could compel such actions? The BBC asked criminologists and psychologists for their views.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">An unfamiliar fear<\/h2>\n<p>A food crime of this kind is rare in Australia and even its concept feels very unfamiliar, experts say.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-45584140\" class=\"story-body__link\">Supermarket giant stops selling sewing needles<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;I think that&#8217;s why there is such a sense of public outrage over this,&#8221; says forensic psychologist Anita McGregor, from the University of New South Wales.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You pick up a punnet of strawberries &#8211; something so benign and anticipated to be safe &#8211; and this is a step outside that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">EPA<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    Supermarkets across the country have removed the fruit from sale<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Police have not speculated publicly about how the scare began, saying they are working through complex industry supply chains.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Who could be the target?<\/h2>\n<p>Criminologists say different motives are possible. Perpetrators may not even intend to hurt the public, according to Prof Murray Lee from the University of Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You want to think about how someone&#8217;s justifying these actions to themselves,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Perhaps they&#8217;ve been upset by a particular grower or business and wanted to take some kind of revenge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But it could also be a deliberate act of malice towards the public that is intended to spread fear, he says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You could equate [that possibility] with forms of terror that use cars and planes as weapons &#8211; it&#8217;s obviously not the same thing &#8211; but it&#8217;s sort of a small-scale version of that,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\"\/>\n<hr class=\"story-body__line\"\/>\n<p>Ms McGregor said it could be an act of &#8220;madness or badness&#8221;, or both.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They could just be acting out against something in their personal lives, or acting on some delusion where they feel compelled to do something, but not out of a sense of criminality,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Copycats and pranksters<\/h2>\n<p>Regardless of the motivations, criminologists say acts of sabotage are done with intent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we&#8217;re seeing here is not an accident,&#8221; said criminologist Dr Danielle Harris from Griffith University.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We can try and understand why people break into houses or commit assault, but this here is not an act of passion. Whether it&#8217;s the original crime or copycat offences, hoaxes and false alarms, these are acts of free will.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><\/p>\n<p>                 <span class=\"off-screen\">Image copyright<\/span><br \/>\n                 <span class=\"story-image-copyright\">JOSHUA GANE<\/span><\/p>\n<p>            <\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"off-screen\">Image caption<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"media-caption__text\"><br \/>\n                    People have found needles inside strawberries in several cases around Australia<br \/>\n                <\/span><br \/>\n            <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Prof Lee agrees, and says the &#8220;novelty&#8221; of the act &#8211; targeting something that is ordinarily mundane &#8211; would appeal to copycat offenders. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With each case reported, it&#8217;s generating its own excitement,&#8221; he says. &#8220;So you can imagine someone slightly unhinged also wanting to join in on the notoriety and create their own news.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-australia-45569266\" class=\"story-body__link\">The government has introduced stricter penalties for contaminating food<\/a> as part of its response to the scare.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Harris says that copycat offenders are exhibiting &#8220;attention-seeking behaviour&#8221;, similar to internet trolling and cyber bullying.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People do things anonymously they wouldn&#8217;t otherwise do, especially in this circumstance where there is a significant disconnection between the behaviour and the harm,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not an act of sadism. It&#8217;s not someone who wants to see the pain of another person biting into the strawberry. There is a disconnect here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><i>Reporting by the BBC&#8217;s Frances Mao<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-australia-45555835\">Source<\/a> by <a href=\"\">[author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright QUEENSLAND POLICE Image caption Why are needles being inserted into strawberries? Australia is currently searching for a saboteur (or saboteurs) amid a national scare involving the hiding of sewing needles within strawberries. In one case, a consumer who swallowed a needle had to be treated in hospital. Children and others have reported narrow &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}