A Czech prisoner locked up on theft charges has been freed and allowed to go back home to his wife after getting a permanent erection.
The 37-year-old man was serving a six month sentence in Plzen jail in the southwest of the country - and woke wardens in the early hours of the morning complaining he had an erection that would not go away.
He told staff it was extremely painful and after prison doctors called to examine the erect member were unable to help, the man had to be taken to a specialist hospital in Prague where surgeons were forced to operate to treat the problem.
They said the man had been suffering from a rare condition known as priapism in which blood becomes trapped in the penis during an erection and can only be treated through immediate surgery, local daily Pravo reported.
After surgery however the man was allowed to go home where medical experts said he would be better off being cared for by his wife than in the prison hospital.