An Austrian court has ordered a bank robber be given back £51,000 that he stole 19 years ago.
Bank manager Otto Neuman stole £150,000 in cash as well as gold bars and gold coins from his own branch in 1993.
After getting into financial difficulties, he recruited two accomplices to stage a fake robbery at the Erste Bank in Vienna’s Doebling district.
By the time police caught up with them, only £51,000 and the gold could be recovered. The rest of the money had gone.
The gold went to the insurance company which had already paid the bank for its loss but the cash has been sitting at the Austrian Justice Ministry ever since.
Neuman’s lawyer, Herbert Eichenseder, confirmed he been recently been contacted by court officials and asked to help return the stolen money to his client.
The bank felt it had no claim on the money because it had been compensated in full by its insurance company.
And the insurers said they didn’t want it as they had not lost out either. They stolen gold had increased in value so much that it covered all of the money paid to the bank.
Eichenseder said: “I really didn’t believe what the court were telling me but I checked it and it was correct.
“I had to go into the archives in our cellar to find the details of the case as it was already 19 years old – and I managed to track down the man’s details and contacted him to tell him the news.
“To say that he was surprised was an understatement, but he provided his bank account details and the money has now been transferred.”
Farmer lost mobile phone inside cow
British mobile phone users have been losing and destroying their handsets in some bizarre circumstances, according to a new report.
A Devon farmer claimed to have damaged his iPhone by accidentally inserting it into the rear of a cow while attempting to use it as a torch during calving.
A woman, in her early 40s from Nottingham, admitted she had absentmindedly baked her Nokia 6303i into a Victoria Sponge intended for her daughter’s birthday.
A couple re-enacting the classic Titanic scene featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet lost their phone over the side of their cruise ship, whilst trying to take a photo of themselves.
Another woman, in her 30s, said she lost her Samsung Galaxy after it was snatched from her hand by a rogue seagull while out walking on Barry Island beach, Wales.
In Liverpool, a woman in her 20s reported breaking her HTC Desire X phone by throwing it at her cheating boyfriend and hitting a wall instead.
A pyrotechnician claimed his iPhone 3GS was fired 3,000ft into the air after being left in the “blast zone” during a display of fireworks in Plymouth.
A man in his 30s claimed he’d been filming monkeys from the car window in Longleat Safari Park with his HTC One X when a monkey climbed on the roof and snatched it.
And a woman in her late 20s from Bristol claimed the vibration function on her BlackBerry Bold 9900 phone had stopped working whilst she was using it as an adult toy.
A spokeswoman for www.MobileInsurance.co.uk said each claim had been fully and rigorously investigated.
Firefighters in nutty squirrel rescue
Firefighters came to the rescue after a squirrel burying his nuts managed to get his head stuck in a manhole cover.
Concerned passers-by called the fire brigade when they spotted the distressed rodent trapped in the middle of the street in Munich, Germany, as cars thundered by.
Firefighters and vets eventually freed the squirrel – usually one of nature’s great escape artists – with special metal cutting equipment after an attempt to ease him out with soapy water failed.
“Apart from being a bit grumpy, which is understandable, he was fine and ran straight up the nearest tree,” said a fire service spokesman.
“As it’s autumn we think he’d been looking for places to bury his nuts but had taken a bit of a wrong turn.”
Cinema plays horror film to kid
Children had an unexpected shock when a cinema played a horror movie instead of Madagascar.
Excited youngsters and their parents were looking forward to seeing animated film, Madagascar: Europe’s Most Wanted.
But their joy turned into utter horror when the projectionist accidentally played Paranormal Activity 4.
The film opened with a flashback to the first Paranormal Activity – featuring a woman’s bloodied corpse being hurled at the big screen.
Around 25 families scrambled for the exit of the Cineworld theatre in Nottingham, reports The Mirror.
Natasha Lewis, 32, from Bulwell, Notts, took her eight-year-old son Dylan Lewis-Gray to the 10am screening.
She said: “I’m disgusted about it. It was only about two minutes worth of the film but it was enough to scar the children for life.
“It’s a terrifying scene where a body shoots towards the camera. It’s enough to make grown men jump – imagine the terror for these kids.
“All you could hear were children crying and screaming. Everyone was upset. Dylan doesn’t want to set foot in the cinema again.”
A Cineworld spokeswoman added: “There was technical error with the projector. We apologise sincerely.”
Post published in: News