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Man Holds Up Bank Using A Banana In A Plastic Bag

Man Holds Up Bank Using A Banana In A Plastic Bag

The 50-year-old man handed himself in shortly after

Claire Reid

Claire Reid

A man has been jailed for robbing a bank with a banana. Let's just agree now not to make any jokes about him 'a-peeling' his sentence, OK?

Fifty-year-old Laurence James Vonderdell walked into a Barclays bank in Bournemouth with a banana covered in a plastic Sainsbury's bag. He approached the cashier and said: "This is a stick-up - give me the cash."

Laurence James Vonderdell was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
PA

He was given more than £1,100 in £20 notes, before he left the bank and approached some nearby police officers and told them he had committed an armed robbery and that he 'wanted to be arrested'.

The cops advised him to go to a police station, which he did.

In Bournemouth Crown Court, the judge heard that Vonderdell was about to be made homeless from his flat, so decided to hold up a bank in an attempt to get arrested, so he would 'have a roof over his head'.

James Vonderdell feared he was going to be made homeless.
Dorset Police

His lawyer Anne-Marie Garvie told the court her client had 'no intention of hurting anyone' and that he had only carried out the crime to avoid being homeless.

The court also heard that he had 'no intention' of spending the cash he stole, The Independent reports.

Sentencing, Judge Robert Pawson said: "He's gone into a bank with a banana in a plastic bag. It sounds laughable but the cashier didn't know that.

"What would have happened if an armed response unit had been called?"

He was jailed for 14 months.

Detective Constable Andy Hale said: "Even though the defendant handed himself in shortly after this incident and the cash was recovered, this must still have been a very distressing incident for the cashier involved."

Vonderdell used the banana to hold up a bank before going straight to the police.
Dorset Police

Bizarrely, this isn't the first time someone has held up a bank using fruit - earlier this year, a man in Israel was arrested after he walked into the Postal Bank 'armed' with an avocado he had painted black, telling the clerk that if she didn't hand over NIS 16,0003,692) he would detonate his 'grenade'.

According to The Times of Israel, he did the exact same thing in a different bank less than a week later and made off with NIS 12,000 (£2,634).

The alleged robber was caught by cops after they tracked his mobile phone.

Featured Image Credit: Dorset Police

Topics: uk news, crime