Swiss officials say they are powerless to act against identical twins who have run-up hundreds of parking tickets and blamed each other for the offences.

They say they cannot punish Harold and Michael Lengen, 38, for parking offences committed while driving around Winterthur.

Police say that in the last year alone the twins have collected 29 parking tickets on a car which they both share.

But every time they refuse to pay them and tell courts that the other was driving.

And police say that as they are identical twins it is impossible to rely on visual evidence to prove who was driving the car when they got the ticket.

A police spokesman said: "It is immensely frustrating for our officers. Every time we hand one of them out a ticket we know what is going to happen next and that they will never pay it.

"But there really is nothing we can do."