An Austrian man has been fined £45 for breaking wind while he was being questioned by police officers.

Police in Graz said the laughter of passers-by humiliated them, giving them grounds to book Hansi Sporer, 20, under local anti police abuse laws. "This was no accident. He clearly intended to make a laughing stock out of the officers and deserved what he got," said one police source.

The Safety and Security Act allows police to issue instant fines to people who insult or attack them. Lawyers for Sporer, from Frohnleiten, near Graz, argued that his outburst had been accidental.

"This was an abuse of a serious law intended to protect police officers from serious attacks by members of the public not some trivial incident. "In the end Mr Sporer decided it was easier and cheaper to pay the fine than it would be to fight it."

Well I hope that I never end up in that police station!


Quoting precedents did not help Hansi's case...

The original was here