Lacoste begs police: please stop mass killer wearing our clothes

Lacoste, the upmarket French fashion label renowned for its green crocodile logo, has demanded that Norway's self-confessed mass-murderer, Anders Breivik, be banned from wearing its garments because it fears the company's reputation is being damaged.

Breivik, who murdered 77 people on 22 July, has a penchant for Lacoste clothes. One of the most widely published photographs of the killer shows him wearing a red Lacoste pullover while sitting in a police car.

However, Norwegian police revealed yesterday that the company had contacted them and demanded that Breivik be refused permission to wear its label in future. "The company evidently feels that such a man sporting its clothes could do considerable harm to its reputation," a police spokesman told the newspaper Dagbladet.

Lacoste, which once described its clothing as the "status symbol of the competent sportsman" and uses the tennis star Andy Roddick to market its products, would not comment yesterday. However the Paris daily Libération said the Breivik-Lacoste connection was clearly a "nightmare" for the company.

Police have said that Breivik refuses to put on prison clothing in the Oslo jail where he is being held in solitary confinement and insists on wearing his own clothes. He was photographed wearing one of the company's red polo shirts when taken by police to revisit the scene of his crimes.

Police have not said whether they will agree to Lacoste's request.