During February 2007 in  Elche near Alicante there was a robbery in the local branch of the CAM bank.A man went into the bank,threatened staff and took a customer hostage,This happened very blatently and openly with a number of witnesses to the event.The man took about 5000 euros in what was basically loose change.He was masked and most of his face was hidden.Most of it but not his nose.

The noses of most people are pretty much the same but this one was unusual according to all of those who witnessed the robbery.The size and shape of this nose was unusual.However the Elche court was aquitted as the judge ruled that the man could not be identified by his nose alone.The judge felt that there was “reasonable”doubt and applied presumption of innocence. The prosecutor had been seeking an eight year sentence for this robbery.

It would be interesting to discover if others had been found guilty because a single feature had been identified  by witnesses.Surely the court or the police would have recognised right from the beginning that just having his “nose” for identification was not enough and an expensive court case could have been avoided.