Germany in Focus, page 3

• Cold Case
  A German doctor is in hot water after he rubber stamped a death certificate to say that an elderly woman had died of natural causes – only to have her killer hand himself in and confess to her murder by strangulation three days later.
• Parking Mad
  Traffic wardens put a 35 GBP parking ticket on a pet dog when they claimed its owner had left the three-year-old terrier tied up in the wrong place.
• Silent Witness
  Police are appealing for the parents of a 30-month-old toddler found apparently abandoned outside a railway burger bar in Hanau, Germany.
• Well Bee-haved
  A colony of bees genetically engineered to make them less aggressive were so docile that thieves simply carried their hive away, say police in Hassenhausen, Germany.

• Prison Broke
  Jailbird Michael Maier broke into a house and treated himself to a slap up meal before dialing 999 to hand himself into police just days after being released because life outside prison was too tough for him.
• Moo-vie Star
  Yvonne the runaway cow is to become a big screen movie star after Disney producers signed her up for a 30 million GBP feature film about her three months on the loose.
• One Night Stranded
  A worn-out lover begged police to rescue him when the woman he'd picked up on a one night stand locked him in her apartment and demanded more sex.
• House About A Bed
  A drunk who smashed his way into a house in Viechtach, Germany, and then passed out in the owners' bed told police he thought he'd been getting into a friend's home on the other side of the road where he was spending the weekend.

• Busy Doing Nothing
  A retiring Town Hall engineer is counting the cost of sending one last email before he quit boasting of earning nearly 750,000 GBP for a career of "doing nothing."
• Swiss Rolls
  A retiring Town Hall engineer is counting the cost of sending one last email before he quit boasting of earning nearly 750,000 GBP for a career of "doing nothing."
• Star Attraction
  The world's only car known to have been hit by a meteorite has been shipped from a garage in New York to be the star of an exhibition about meteorites in a German Natural History Museum.
• Police Tip-Off
  A nightclub thug who bit a policeman's manhood so badly he needed reconstruction surgery is facing jail in Marktredwitz, Germany.

• Last Straw
  Student Matthias Lowe, 22, was warned for wasting police time after he dialed 999 to report a fast food restaurant in Hamburg, Germany, because they'd run out of straws for his Coca-Cola.
• Old Boot
  An absent-minded driver has been warned by police after he locked his grand-daughter in the boot of his car and forgot she was there.
• Wedded Blitz
  Wedding guests armed with iron bars and baseball bats staged a mass brawl outside a church in Monchengladbach, Germany, after the bride and groom called off the service because their families didn't get on.
• Chain Reaction
  Two teenage motocross motorcyclists died as they slept overnight in their van before a contest when they were poisoned by fumes from a portable fridge, say police in Giessen, Germany.

• The Biggest Loser
  German prosecutors are investigating allegations of kidnapping against makers of a reality TV show where contestants are expected to lose weight after allegedly refusing to allow one of the contestants to leave a health farm to visit her sick boyfriend until filming was complete.
• Up The Swanny
  Fireman were called in to rescue this highflyer after he hit a roof after trying to fly over a three-storey house in Munich, Germany.
• Road Hogs
  Eleven road hogs paid for blocking the road with their lives after a Swiss motorist ploughed into the middle of a family of wild pigs.
• Leg-go
  A hospital patient is in intensive care after he was shot by armed police when he went berserk with a broken bottle on a ward in Siegen, Germany.

• Unlucky Brake
  An 87-year-old motorist was crushed to death under her own car when she forgot to put her handbrake on after parking on a hill outside her home in Wuppertal, Germany.
• Mugs Bunny
  Baffled 999 cops called to challenge a prowler with a "striking face" found themselves nicking a 6ft rubber statue of the Easter Bunny left outside a house by pranksters.
• Come Dine With Me Suicide
  A model killed herself after she was taunted by internet trolls about her fake boobs after starring on a TV Come Dine With Me-style show in Germany.
• Road Hedge Hog
  A bid to avoid a hedgehog proved costly for this Ferrari testarossa driver after he swerved out of control and smashed into the crash barrier on the B64 at Eschershausen in Lower Saxony in Germany.

• Snakes Alive
  Animal shelters in the German state of Thuringen say they had been flooded with abandoned snakes after a change in the law locally meant the keeping of such pets was much more difficult.
• Roof Wreck
  Bungling bargain hunter Peter Frank wrote off his brand new 35,000 GBP Jeep after driving hundreds of miles to get it a knockdown price.
• School Rump
  Hookers in an apartment above a kindergarten offering special prices to dads on the school run are being investigated by police in Nuremberg, Germany.
• Earwig Go
  Thousands of swarming ladybirds triggered a police alert when they landed on a football pitch in Karlsruh, Germany, and set off motion sensor alarms - bringing three armed response units speeding to the club.

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.