This year, it wasn’t the Bunny who saved Easter — it was the West Mercia Police. Among the Peeps and Reese’s Eggs, to one man, Cadbury Creme eggs reigned supreme — so much so that just this past Saturday, the British police arrested him for stealing a semi truck filled with 200,000 Cadbury Creme Eggs, thought to be worth nearly 40,000 British pounds, or $48,000.
The Associated Press identified the man as John Pool, 32, who will be charged with theft of a trailer, theft of the trailer’s contents, and damage to a chain lock. Pool allegedly used a metal grinder to break into an industrial park and into the truck.
While Pool did not steal the candy because he is secretly the Easter Bunny, many Twitter users can understand his hungry heist. As the situation gained global attention, some Creme Egg fans sympathized with Pool’s actions, while others saw “his life-long dream to be the Easter Bunny quashed.” Funnily enough, the police bestowed this nickname on Pool following the theft — a dream *almost* come true.
Prosecutor Owen Beale believes that the candy caper was heavily planned. “This clearly wasn’t spur-of-the-moment offending, if I can put it like that, because he had taken with him a tractor unit and he had to know that the load was there in the first place,” Beale told The Guardian. Like many of us scouting our local CVS shelfs, Pool has likely been surveying the area to get a glimpse of the goodies.
Luckily for Creme Egg fans worldwide, defence solicitor John McMillan assured not only a substantial sentence for Pool, but that no products were tampered with. “There has been no interference with the food products that were taken,” McMillan also told The Guardian. “They will be in a condition that they can go back on the shelves.”
For Pool, his Easter Bunny plot may have been foiled. But for Cadbury fans everywhere, those Easter morning Creme Eggs will only be even sweeter.