British pensioner hailed in Venice for handing in bag full of cash

Italians have paid tribute to a British policeman’s mother who found a bag containing as much as €2,700 (£2,400) while on holiday in Venice and promptly handed the windfall into the nearest police station in the lagoon city. 

The unnamed 67-year-old Londoner told flabbergasted Venetian officers that she made the gesture in part because of her respect for European police forces battling terrorism "like my son".

The woman was identified by the Venice police force only with the initials T.C.S., evidently because she preferred her selfless act to remain anonymous. 

"I have a lot of time for European police forces," the leading Corriere della Sera newspaper quoted her saying, "my son is also a police officer."

The exemplary mother stumbled on the bag lying on the ground Saturday evening in one of the narrow alleyways that criss-cross the city alongside its constellation of canals.

"Instead of putting it in her pocket, the next morning she went determinedly to the nearest police station and handed in the money," the Corriere della Sera said.

"It was the only thing I could do," the newspaper quoted her saying.

Venice was the final stop on a three-city tour of the peninsula for the good Samaritan, which previously took her to Naples and Rome.

The incident and kind words from a rare foreign admirer were welcome good news for Italian police forces who have come under criticism for what observers slam as a lack of discipline and violent behaviour to the public in recent weeks. 

The Carabinieri paramilitary police force last week end made a formal apology to two American students in the Tuscan capital of Florence who allegedly were raped by two rogue Carabinieri who offered them a lift home from a night club.