Thieves drop £20,000 worth of jewelery and make off with plastic ingot worth £2.25

Bungling thieves dumped £20,000 of gold and diamonds - so they could make off with a fake gold ingot. The pair of smash and grab raiders ended up making their getaway clutching a plastic copy worth just £2.25.

The boss of the store they robbed in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, has branded them "clowns". John Galloway, manager of Broomknoll Jewelers, said: "There were staff and customers in the shop at the time. The couple were driving a Vauxhall Corsa and put a brick through the glass.

"They had grabbed a whole lot of stuff, gold and diamond rings, but then flung it back when they saw the ingot. Who in their right mind would do that?

"The police were rolling about the floor when they came. The ingot was bought from a shop display company for £2.25 - if it had been real it would probably be worth about £40,000. It was quite heavy, so maybe that fooled them."