Story By: Koen Berghuis, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

An 80-year-old pensioner who threw her estranged lover’s dog from a seventh-floor balcony during an argument said she had originally wanted to throw the telly but it was too heavy.

And the court heard that when he reported her to cops over the dog, she had then had sex with him in order to seduce him into withdrawing the complaint, resulting in a charge of coercion as well as animal cruelty.

The elderly widow, whose name has not been mentioned, recently ended a nine-month fling with the retired electrician named Hansi.

When she arrived at his flat in the Austrian capital of Vienna to hand back the keys to his home which he had previously given her, the two reportedly got into a fight over 400 EUR (344 GBP) which the man allegedly borrowed from her.

Out of anger the woman picked up the man’s dog, a 10-month-old Yorkshire terrier called ‘Bubi’, and threw it from the seventh-floor balcony.

The dog did not survive the fall and the woman’s ex-lover reported her to the police.

In court, the pensioner admitted she had thrown the dog from the balcony.

She said: “The creature came in, I took it, and threw it off the balcony.”

The woman added she had nothing against the dog but was just “agitated”.

Reportedly, her ex-lover did not even realise in the beginning that poor Bubi had been thrown from the flat as he was too busy watching television.

When presiding judge Petra Schindler-Pecoraro asked why she picked up the dog and not something else, the woman remarked that “the television was too heavy”.

The widow admitted animal cruelty but denied the charge of coercion which she was also charged with.

According to the prosecutor’s office, she coerced her ex-lover and his new girlfriend by threatening to kill them if they did not retract their criminal complaint for animal cruelty.

She reportedly even paid Hansi 4,000 EUR (3,439 GBP) in hush money to remain silent.

The female pensioner said in court: “And then we had intercourse, sexual intercourse.”

The court found the charges proven and sentenced the widow to a ten-month suspended sentence because she had no priors.

Judge Schindler-Pecoraro said: “You have not done anything for 80 years, the court believes that the punishment is enough.”