[West Ender]

My late husband was once taken to a police station after being "apprehended" in Didsbury. He used to go to a sandwich shop there, most days, to buy his lunch. On the day the police "nabbed" him the manager of Tesco had said my husband had stood for almost a full day, 2 days previously, outside the pub opposite "watching the shop" and he was convinced he was going to rob it! They kept my husband at the station for 2 hours, contacting his office to verify where he had been and even ringing me to ask what time he usually got home from work (they led me to believe he was a witness to something), before apologising to him as they very obviously had the wrong man.

The next day my husband called in Tesco and spoke to the manager, assuring him it was a case of mistaken identity. The manager looked him in the eye and said, "It was you", and couldn't be persuaded otherwise. My husband was 6' tall and broad shouldered but he wore glasses and had a beard - he probably looked just like a few dozen other bearded men in Greater Manchester.