A man who was mistakenly identified as a fraudster has been awarded €193,000 compensation after turning down an initial offer of €15,000 by police.

Images of the man were published online after an elderly woman’s bank card was used to buy groceries in a Jumbo supermarket.

But police accidentally obtained the pictures from a different branch of the supermarket chain. They showed a man who had nothing to do with the fraud or theft using a bank card and walking out of the store with bags of shopping.

A news item on local broadcaster Omroep West said he was implicated in other incidents of distraction fraud, where victims are duped into handing over money or cards under false pretences.

The images were removed after the man contacted police to complain. He was offered a payment of €10,000 after a police specialist calculated that the damage amounted to €15,622.

But the man disputed the police’s assumptions that the damage would last no longer than a year. He said he had endured comments, insults and jokes and lost customers in his job as a bookkeeper and driving instructor as a result of the police blunder.

The district court in The Hague awarded him €183,000 in damages, most of which related to the lost business from his administration office, as well as €10,000 for “immaterial damage”.

A police spokesman said the force would study the judgment before deciding whether to appeal.