Ferris Bueller, the 80s wild child played by Matthew Broderick, only had one problem in his annoyingly perfect life, the relentless Dean of Students at his High School, Ed Rooney.

Well, Ferris’s days of running from Mr. Rooney can finally be put behind him after 14 long years as actor Jeffrey Jones was sentenced to 250 hours community service and 3 years probation for failing to update his details on the sex offenders register.

For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Rooney turned out to be a bit of a nonce, which added a really creepy subtext to the scenes in which Rooney tries hunting down Ferris Bueller in a bid to prove that he’s ditching school. Obviously Jeffrey Jones just wanted to spend a hot and sweaty summer locked in a room with a young Matthew Broderick.

Jones, who’s creepy smile and ginger moustache just scream paedo, pleaded guilty to failing to update his registry information, which he was required to do after pleading no contest to a whole host of creepy, child porn related charges in 2003.

We here at Hecklerspray don’t know exactly what his community service will entail, but we do like to speculate. After playing Mr. Rooney, Jones has all the relevant experience to actually become a real life truancy officer, plus with his love of teenage boys he’d be even keener to track them down. It would be like Dog the Bounty Hunter, only 10 times more disturbing, which takes some doing.

One thing is certain, this latest indiscretion will put a spanner in the works of the Ferris Bueller sequel. Ferris and Cameron are probably too old for Rooney now anyway. Plus Sloane would probably be played by Sarah Jessica Parker and no one wants to see that.

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Robin Hood, Ned Kelly, Ronnie Biggs, Dick Turpin, Bonnie and Clyde – arch troublemaker Britney Spears has made sure that your boys took one hell of a beating.

Britney Spears is hot water with the owner of California petrol station after she appeared to indulge in a little bit of casual shoplifting on Friday. Her crime? Taking a blue plastic $1.39 lighter without paying for it. And Britney Spears has even admitted the crime, telling the obligatory gang of following photographers "I stole something. Oh, I'm bad!" But don't think this is the first time that Britney Spears has broken the law – she already has a very serious criminal record. It's called I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman. I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman! Thank you, thank you, we're here all week. Don't forget to try the veal.

Now that we know how much Britney Spears earns, the ways which we can use that information against her is endless. For example, if she wanted to, Britney Spears could afford to buy 6,370,083 blue plastic cigarette lighters every year. Evidently she doesn't, though, because it's much easier for her to go out on the rob instead.

It's been reported that on Friday Britney Spears snatched a blue $1.39 lighter from a petrol station in California without paying for it. While that may not seem as serious as, say, running a red light with your children in your car and a mobile phone held an inch away from your face or threatening to have people murdered, Britney's latest public indiscretion has got the petrol station owner – Jatinder Kaur – all riled up. He told People:

"Yes, Britney stole a blue lighter here last night. The lighter is $1.39. I'm hoping maybe the next time she comes back she will pay for it. I know she can afford to pay for it, but I'm not planning to file a police report. It's still not right for her to steal the lighter. I hope she will do the right thing the next time she comes here."

Quite why Britney Spears decided to steal the lighter is unclear, especially given her circumstances. After all, Britney knows that a phalanx of photographers is always around to record every tiny thing she ever does – so she could hardly expect to get away with it – plus Kevin Federline is inevitably going to use this as another reason to haul his custody battle with Britney back into court for the billionth round of custody negotiations, on the basis that he doesn't want his children to learn how to steal, even though with parents like those it'll be a minor miracle if they ever learn how to do anything other than dribble and fart.

Perhaps money is tighter than we assumed for Britney Spears. Her album Blackout has got '99p HMV Bargain Bin' written all over it, she's paying Kevin Federline's legal bills as well as her own and she needs all her cash to get the fat sucked out out of her arse. That can't leave a lot to spare, which means that either Britney Spears steals lighters from petrol stations or she has to light her cigarettes by banging rocks together for three hours like some sort of manky-looking caveman. What's a girl to do?

While there aren't likely to be any legal recriminations for Britney Spears following this shocking petrol station theft, our main worry is that Britney will become addicted to the thrill of lawbreaking. First it's a plastic $1.39 lighter, then maybe a family-sized bag of Maltesers, then a pair of shoes, then a car – the next thing we know Britney Spears will be pulling off elaborate Ocean's Eleven-style heists involving complicated electronic manipulation, confidence trickstering and all kinds of breathtakingly complex logistical work.

Oh, who are we kidding? Britney Spears looks like she hardly knows how to work buttons.

Read more:

Gas Station Owner to Britney: You Stole My Lighter! – People 

The world has changed since OJ Simpson last stood trial for anything – back then the internet didn't exist, all food tasted like wood shavings and a knife was the most technologically-advanced weapon you could stab people to death with.

But this time, wow. The judge presiding over OJ Simpson's preliminary hearing has ruled that there is more than enough evidence to put OJ Simpson through a full criminal trial for his part in September's supposed armed robbery in Las Vegas. That means that OJ Simpson will have to adjust to being the centrepiece of a blazingly high-profile trial in the 21st century, with all its trappings. OJ Simpson's trial is set to begin in 2008, when you'll be able to stab someone to death with a remote-controlled nanobot and buy food that tastes like anything up to three different types of wood shavings. Sadly, though, the internet still doesn't exist, which means you're imagining all this and should probably get your brain checked out.

2008 looks set to be a golden age of very serious celebrity court cases. Not only will it see Phil Spector's retrial for murder but it'll also be the home to at least some of OJ Simpson's armed robbery trial, for which he could get life in jail. Maybe the Spector and Simpson trials will even run simultaneously, which would be a rare reprieve for OJ Simpson – after all, if that were the case he'd surely get second-billing to the crazy would-be murdering midget in the lesbian get-up.

But that's all speculation – what's important here is that a Las Vegas judge has inevitably ruled that there's easily enough evidence against OJ Simpson to take his armed robbery case to a full criminal trial – where OJ Simpson will face 12 felony counts that could see him thrown in jail until he dies. The ruling came yesterday at the close of OJ Simpson's preliminary hearing, a hearing that has seen OJ Simpson accused of knowing about the guns brought to the raid, then denying any knowledge of them, by two of his accomplices who chose to testify against OJ in return for a lesser punishment.

Yesterday, before the judge made his ruling, OJ Simpson's lawyer Gabriel Grasso did his best to convince the judge to drop the case, saying:

"There has been no showing by the state that there was anything other than the intent by Mr. Simpson to recover property that he reasonably believed was his own property … this is clearly overcharging … Sunglasses? Hats? Cell phones? Twelve counts over that? What are we doing here?"

Meanwhile, after the decision was made, OJ Simpson spoke to reporters, saying:

"This is what we expected. If I have any disappointment it's that I wish a jury was here. As always, I rely on the jury system."

Don't get too excited about seeing OJ Simpson stand a criminal trial, though – court officials say that the trial is a year away at best. That's good news for OJ Simpson, since his supposed armed robbery has a cast made entirely from almost comically shady characters. Thomas Riccio, the auctioneer who set up the meeting between Simpson and the dealers, is a convicted felon. The auctioneers themselves are, in turn, a convicted stalker and a man so money-obsessed that he wants Jack Nicholson to star as him in the film of his own life. And as for OJ Simpson's treacherous goons, well, one of them might be a pimp.

But OJ Simpson has a year to work his defence out, which is plenty of time to solidly question the motives of everyone else involved in the armed robbery. Prosecutors probably won't have to work as hard, what with that tape of OJ Simpson robbing some men at what sounds like gunpoint and all. Either way, it'll be interesting to see how the trial pans out.

And at least this way OJ Simpson has a full year to try and find the world's most beautiful lesbian wig, since that's apparently so key to getting off celebrity gun-based crimes these days.