Ananova:

A German robber was caught after he escaped with his loot - but left his trousers behind.

Thomas Kohler, 21, punched taxi driver Daniel Eiffel, 53, in the face and made to run off with his mobile phone at Siegburg, near Cologne.

But as he turned to flee the cabbie grabbed his loose fitting trousers - which were torn free as he fled.

Mr Eiffel said: "My natural reaction as he tried to make off with my phone was to grab for him but I could only reach his trousers. He kept struggling and managed to wriggle out of them and run off half-naked."

Mr Eiffel called police on a phone he borrowed from a passer-by and gave them a description of the trouserless crook.

"I didn't think the police would have a hard job catching a man running round the city in his underwear," he said.

Police successfully arrested the thief at a train station trying to board a train in his underpants.