Latest in nonlethal weapons: Poo-flinging catapult

We have written about nonlethal weapons, but this nonlethal system is a bit out of the mainstream. An English businessman, who told the Daily Telegraph’s John Bingham that he is being harassed by burglars and arsonists, has deployed a modified Roman siege engine to protect his premises. For use as a nonlethal security measure the catapult is loaded with chicken excrement, but even so its use has been forbidden by the police — apparently resulting in more break-ins.

The poo-flinging machine, described by its owner Joe (“Grumpy Joe”) Weston-Webb as “an enormous replica of a Roman boulder thrower,” was originally built for the purpose of hurling female stunt performers across rivers. Weston-Webb’s all-girl “Motobirds” stunt troupe was a famous 1970s and 1980s attraction: at one point he successfully shot his wife out of a cannon across the River Avon, though unfortunately she rebounded from the safety net on the other side and landed in the water. This was merely one of Weston-Webb’s many triumphs as a stunt impresario (see his Web site). Lewis Pages writes that he was particularly impressed with the story of the “the first ever gorilla to parachute into a showground,” which apparently led to one of many prosecutions by the RSPCA (Weston-Webb insists that the luckless ape was not pushed out of the plane: “He leaned out too far reaching for the banana on the end of the stick, your honor”).

Another animal-cruelty lawsuit resulted after Weston-Webb’s attempt to stage an underwater wrestling match between a man and the largest crocodile then in captivity in Europe. “The croc wouldn’t fight,” says Grumpy Joe, but as soon as it was released from the tank it bolted, causing consternation among the crowd — and for Weston-Webb, who “could see his investment disappearing.” The frustrated fight promoter apparently rugby-tackled the fleeing reptile and “tied its jaws together with my dressing-gown cord.”

In later years Weston-Webb settled down, inventing a portable snap-together flooring system for use in marquees at outdoor events, for dancefloors, and so forth. His company, Portable Floormakers, had achieved a turnover of more than £2 million by 2003, allowing him to “semi retire” to America to run “a popular comedy dinner show” called “FIASCOS — where dining meets disaster.” After the company premises were destroyed by a hurricane he returned to the United Kingdom in 2006.

Weston-Webb is now back in the snap-together flooring business in the United Kingdom under the banner “Grumpy Joe’s Flooring”. He says he has won a lucrative contract to supply dancefloors for Strictly Come Dancing. He also says, however, that his new enterprise suffered an arson attack in 2008 and that cars outside his daughter’s house had tyres slashed and windows smashed on the same night.

There were other break-ins and vandalism, leading Weston-Webb to dust off his old armory of show weapons, loading the woman-hurling catapult with chicken dung and rigging it as a booby trap to deter intruders. Page writes that the person-firing cannon was also loaded with a railway sleeper, with Weston-Webb explaining to the Times that it was not possible to put his wife in any more. “She’s 54 now and far too big to fit into the cannon,” he told the paper.

Local cops, learning of the “smart poo” defenses, advised Weston-Webb that these measures did not come under the heading of reasonable force. He reluctantly disarmed the weaponry. Perhaps encouraged by this, miscreants struck again on Monday night. Tools, a computer, and a plasma TV were taken and again there was vandalism — to the tune of £10,000 all-up, Weston-Webb says.

Grumpy Joe sounds as a member of the NRA when he told the Telegraph that he believed that every Englishman has the right to defend his property, if necessary using powerful siege artillery loaded with excrement. “It is ridiculous that we are in this situation now in which we can’t defend ourselves,” he said.