ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

A Scottish businessman flushed hundreds of pounds worth of banknotes down the toilet believing them to be fake - only to find out afterwards that they were real.

The unnamed man, who lives on the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles, had been told by his bank that the £20 notes were fake following a suspected counterfeiting operation in the area.

Stornoway Police launched an investigation into the alleged scam but the Serious Organised Crime Agency later confirmed that the money was in fact real. By this time around £200 worth of notes had been flushed down the toilet.

"This is a right mess and it is all about the bank's failure to properly train their local staff on how to spot fake notes," said the man. "I tore up the £20 notes returned to me by the bank as fakes, and I put them down the toilet to stop them getting back into circulation.

"I thought that was my public duty. How do I prove that and who is going to compensate me?"

A spokesman for the Bank of Scotland said: "We found what we thought were inconsistencies with some banknotes and as a precaution we set these notes aside so they were no longer in circulation. We have robust procedures in place which are standard across the industry."