A German cyclist lied to police about being mugged because he was afraid to tell his wife the truth: he rode into a lamppost while drunk and injured himself.
The man, 30, called police and said he had been mugged by six youths while walking home.
"He said he beat off two of them, and that the rest fled through bushes behind the pavement," Peter Grimm, a spokesman for police in the southern town of Schwabach, said Thursday.
Police became suspicious after finding a wire fence behind the bushes and, Grimm said, the man then "admitted he had made it all up as a cover story because he was afraid of his wife."
He now faces charges for being drunk while in charge of a bicycle and faking a crime. Police had carried out a blood test that proved he was drunk when they first interviewed him.
