An explosion which caused the destruction of three houses in Salford, Greater Manchester, is being blamed on faulty gas work by a local builder.
But Ron Badger, the accused workman, is claiming it was al-Qaeda.
"I noticed a new printer in the house I was working in," he told us "it was one of those fancy ones, you know, fax, printer and scanner all in one!"
"It's just a knee-jerk reaction to blame me," he continued, "I'm just a scapegoat. It's so unfair."
The resident of the house at the centre of the blast was thought to have printed out an AA route finder plan at approximately 7:15am. Could this be the cause?
Detective Anderson Brown told us "we are looking at reports that a document was printed by the resident, at around the time of the explosion. We are investigating exactly where the printer was purchased from."
"One form of enquiry is leading us to a van hijacking in the Manchester area a week ago," he continued "where a delivery of one such machine, intended for Manchester United football club, was intercepted by thieves. We're looking at the possibility that this could be the same machine, possibly purchased down the pub, by some cheapskate."
A real case of mistaken identity.
More as we print it.
