HUNGARY – A man has been handed a suspended jail sentence and a heavy fine, after he deliberately chopped off his own legs to claim a £2.4 million insurance payout.
The defendant named only as Sandor Cs. due to strict local privacy laws, was found guilty of purposely lying down in front of a train so he could pocket the cash in 2014.
The shocking incident meant both his legs were amputated from the knee down and he has been using prosthetic limbs and remained wheelchair-bound ever since. The 54-year-old resident of the Hungarian village of Nyircsaszari is claimed to have climbed onto the tracks so a train would run over both of his legs.
Cs. claimed that he took out the policies after receiving financial advice telling him returns are better on insurance policies than savings accounts. After the incident, his wife applied for the payouts but the insurance companies refused to cough up saying that they suspected he had inflicted the injury on himself.
Cs. however insisted he was innocent and that he stepped on a shard of glass which resulted in him losing his balance and falling in front of the train that was just departing the station, according to reports.
The long-winded investigation concluded that he should receive a two-year suspended prison sentence and an order to pay £4,725 in legal costs.
