/ 18 June 2007

Student stages robbery to wipe bad grades

A 16-year-old Berlin student was so worried he would have to repeat a year at school because of poor marks he convinced two friends to storm his class and steal the report cards with his bad grades.

”The student probably honestly believed that he could avoid repeating the school year if he made the report cards disappear,” said a spokesperson for local police on Monday.

The youth sat quietly at the back of the classroom as the two masked robbers, aged 14 and 15, burst in and threatened his teacher with a steel bar if she did not hand over the reports.

After grabbing them, the two tried to flee but dropped the reports as other students leapt to defend the teacher. The two were arrested close to the school, and told police their friend had devised the raid because he was afraid of flunking a year.

Police would not reveal what incentives the youth had offered the pair to carry out the robbery, adding the youths faced legal consequences once investigations were over. – Reuters