Monday 30 April 2012

Did a nude motorbike passenger really receive a warning from Romanian police?

On the news pages of the Mirror website, the banner says:


On 24 April, under this banner, the Mirror published this story:


The article by 'agency staff' says:

They're the kind of bumpers that could be a serious safety hazard for other pop-eyed road users.

But when this nude pillion passenger was stopped by traffic police in Constanta, Romania, the only thing she was pinched for was for not wearing a helmet.

These pictures - taken by other motorists clearly impressed by her boot-y - were taken after she obeyed the police warning and put her crash-hat back on.

And her ample bodywork - now to be found on Facebook - could teach any motorist a thing or two about dangerous curves.

"The officer was a traffic cop and the only traffic offence she'd committed was in not wearing a helmet," explained one witness to Romanian media today.

"So he gave her a warning and a ticket and told her and her companion to ride on," they added.

The same story with the same quotes was repeated by the Metro the day after.

The Mirror's article comes with two photos of the woman on the motorbike, suitably pixelated.

However, as revealed by BildBlog, these photos were posted online on 31 October 2007 (NSFW) by someone who, ahem, clearly had a fondness for sharing (and, possibly, taking) photos of women who are naked in public.

It also appears that most of the cars in the photographs carry licence plates from the Czech Republic, which suggests the photos might not have been taken in Romania at all.

It's not clear where the quote from the anonymous 'witness' came from.

If this incident happened - and that seems doubtful given the origin of the photos - it must have happened over four-and-a-half years ago.

That's 'real news'. In 'real time'. 

(Hat-tip to Petra O)

2 comments:

  1. Another example might be the story about "Anna Mackowiak", a Polish dentist who allegedly removed all her former boyfriends teeth. The Polish media somehow haven't run the story; every reference to it globally returns to the Daily Fail.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whatever happens post-Leveson, I don't think our national newspapers and magazines will ever be weaned off the habit of making up quotes.

    ReplyDelete

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