Judge cites 42 Beatles songs to teach beer thief a lesson

A judge sentencing a Beatles-loving beer thief quoted 42 of the band’s song titles in his verdict.

Andrew McCormack, 20, was asked to recommend to a US court what his sentence should be for stealing beer.

He wrote: “Like the Beetles say, Let It Be”. But his cheeky quip did not impress Gregory Todd, a 56-year-old district court judge in Montana.

In a sentencing memorandum Judge Todd first corrected McCormack's misspelling and then gave the defendant a lesson in The Beatles discography.

He replied: “Mr McCormack, you pled guilty to the charge of Burglary. To aid me in sentencing I review the pre-sentence investigation report.

“I read with interest the section containing Defendant’s statement. To the question of ‘Give your recommendation as to what you think the Court should do in this case’, you said, ‘Like the Beetles say Let It Be'.

“While I will not explore the epistemological or ontological overtones of your response, or even the syntactic of symbolic keys of your allusion, I will say Hey Jude, Do You Want to Know a Secret?

"The greatest band in rock history spelled their name B-e-a-t-l-e-s."

See the full two-page sentencing memorandum here.