Germany in Focus, page 2

• Got the Needle
  Police are hunting the idle owner of a four-month-old Christmas tree who chucked it out of the window at a block of flats in Wurzberg, Germany, where it crashed into a parked car in the street below.
• Nazi Surprise
  Gardener Rita Relinger, 61, unearthed a rusty metal swastika after buying a bag of compost from her local supermarket in Oberhausen, Germany.
• One Jump Ahead
  Judges have thrown out a case against a vet in Hamm, Germany, facing claims that he lost 20 test tubes of stallion semen from an Olympic showjumper.
• Goal Difference
  A German club is under investigation by the Bavarian Football Association (BFV) after they let in 39 goals because they only fielded seven players.

• Crime Watched
  Police swooped to arrest a suspected jewel thief as he enjoyed a drink at a pavement cafe in Stuttgart, Germany, at the weekend only to find they had arrested an actor who had starred in the re-enactment of the raid on the local version of Crime Watch.
• Firework Music
  British firm Jubilee Fireworks is hoping to hit the right note in putting their fireworks to music after being invited to compete at the International Firework Competition at the Herrenhausen Gardens at Hanover in Germany.
• Sex Perverts Self Mutilation
  A health worker who admitted abusing boys in a hospital in Berlin, Germany, was so devastated by what he had done that he cut of his own testicles to end his desire to assault children.
• Baby Dummy
  This lifelike baby doll sparked a full scale police alert after it was discovered in a bag on a park bench at Neu Ulm in Germany.

• Sperm Bank Robbery Trial
  Two docs who allowed the estranged wife of German man Dieter Fried, 40, to get pregnant using a sperm sample he earlier donated will have to pay child maintenance.
• Sex TaXXX
  German tax men have been forced to visit all of the brothels, strip bars and porn cinemas in the southern German city of Stuttgart - so they can measure their size to work out how much tax they should pay.
• Wedding Crasher
  Bulgarian Mladen Olmez, 40, has been arrested in the Wedding district of Berlin, Germany, - after he threw his wife Hosgün, 38, out of a fourth floor window at their flat during a heated row.
• Nanobots to Rebuild Puma shoes
  German sport clothing firm Puma is starting to experiment with nanotechnology as part of an "up-cycling" programme to create new shoes and T-shirts from the old.

• Smoking Health Risk
  Smoking proved bad for the health for 29-year-old Mandy Gloeckner after she broke into a tobacconist at Sarstedt, Germany, with two pals and tried to escape running down a nearby railway track with an armful of cigarettes.
• Jail Bird
  A German High Court is currently debating whether a man who had a sex change operation to become a woman and who is also a convicted burglar should serve their sentence in a male jail or a female jail.
• Gold Rush
  Gold dealer Stephan Schroeder, 58, who left a a bag filled with valuable gold jewellery and cash worth tens of thousands of pounds on the floor next to a sausage stand when he grabbed a snack had it handed in after it was found by a female customer in Lennestadt, Germany.
• Oh Crumbs
  Crooks made off with 14 tonnes of chocolate biscuits worth over 200,000 GBP after breaking into a storage centre in Pilsting, in Bavaria, Germany.

• Cop That
  Policeman Dirk Boller, 53, has been suspended after asking a woman for a naked picture to avoid a fine in Dusseldorf, Germany.
• Big Success
  A nightclub for overweight dancers is a big success in Hamburg, Germany, after it opened its doors to people that way over 100 kilos in order to get in.
• Cop Out
  Red-faced German police chiefs are in hot water after ordering police cars which are too small for officers to fit into.
• Grave Mistake
  Bungling funeral directors buried the wrong body at a funeral and only realised days later when they found they were missing the body.

• Numbers Up
  German cops are calling for number plates to be introduced for bicycles so they can track cyclists who commit traffic offences.
• Flasher
  German police are hunting a flasher who dropped his trousers and then shined a flashlight on his private parts to make sure people get a good look at Aschaffenburg in Germany.
• Car Sick
  Police blocked a road to rescue a 24-year-old man after he was trapped terrified in the passenger seat of a mini driven by an older woman at high speed through the town centre in Schwabing, Germany.
• Fall Guy
  Hobby gardener Karl Schmidt, 48, survived after falling off a 20 foot ladder while cutting branches off a tree because his wife was standing underneath and broke his fall in the village of Hirstein in north eastern Germany.

• Stiff Competition For Job
  A German government press officer has been put on leave after he sent a snap of his penis to a 35-year-old journalist that had applied for a job.
• Got the Hump
  German gardener Klaus Fiedler, 58, is suing a circus after five camels escaped and broke into his garden where they munched their way through his flowers and shrubs before he discovered them in the morning sleeping off their meal at Obernburg am Main in Bavaria.
• Railway Still Closed After Crash
  German rail officials say they are unlikely to have service resumed before Monday afternoon after an accident in which a passenger train collided with a maintenance crane in a small town in central Germany leaving three people dead and 13 injured.
• Silent Witness
  Police are still appealing for help in tracking down the parents of a 30-month-old toddler found abandoned outside a McDonald's in Hanau, near Frankfurt in Germany.

Chelsea Thugs Target Champs League Final
Anti-soccer thug police have warned that a hard core of violent fans are heading for Chelsea's Champions League final against Bayern Munich on Saturday - despite British police issuing more than 80 travel bans on suspected hooligans.

Old Banger
A cabbie whose gas-powered car exploded just after he'd fuelled up survived with barely a scratch when he was blown clean through the open window, say police in Schwabing, Germany.

Scared Stiff
A burglar fled an apartment in terror when he came face to face with the mummified corpse of the of a woman who'd died unnoticed five years earlier, say police.

Dirty Politics
A grandstanding politician came down to earth with a bump - when a 40 ton digger he'd insisted on driving overturned on top of him.

Ewe Brutes
Callous art students who planned to behead a helpless sheep are being investigated by prosecutors in the German capital Berlin over animal cruelty allegations.

Wedding Lift
A serial car crook found with stolen wedding presents worth more than 150,000 GBP has confessed to pinching them from cars parked outside churches and hotels.

Hot Cross Huns
Naked sauna-goers were among the two hundred guests that fled when a sauna and thermal spa resort in Fichtelburg, Germany, went up in flames causing 25 million GBP of damage.

Wedding Crasher
Boozed up Stephan Pfeifer, 20, was a real wedding crasher after wandering into a community centre attic space to find somewhere to sleep - and plunging 30 foot through the floor to land in a shower of debris in front of bride Annett Friedman in Unterfranken, Germany.

Off Their Trolley
Staff at a Kaufland supermarket in Duisberg, Germany, had to apologise to customers after thieves made off with their entire stock of 150 shopping trolleys overnight.

Piggy Back
Dad Lucas Bergmann who was burgled and his his kid's money boxes and toys stolen while the family were at a New year's Eve party has had the lot returned - complete with an apology note from the thief at Neufahrn in Bavaria, Germany.