Eccentric book collector hoards £100,000 of online books

An eccentric British book collector is alleged to have amassed £100,000 worth of antique literature from online booksellers without actually paying them anything.

The man was released on bail yesterday after police found his flat piled high with more than 2,000 antique books thought to have been fraudulently acquired over the Internet.

Booksellers across the world were apparently duped into believing the man was a professor of linguistics from the University of Manchester and decided not to request credit card details before sending him the books.

According to police it would take the man, who claims to speak 16 different languages, no less than one hundred years to read all the books in his house.