Gerald the garden gnome thought he was safe in the front yard of the Langan home in country Victoria – until he was unexpectedly kidnapped and held for a $10,000 ransom.

Owners Jeanette and Lyndon Langan said they had no choice but to pay the ransom and comply with the warnings, amid fears the hostage-takers would carry out their threats to return Gerald ‘bit by bit’ if they failed to pay up.

‘We hadn’t even noticed that he’d gone until we found a note under our bin saying unless we paid a ransom of $10,000 our gnome’s suffering would be on our heads,’ Jeanette, 65, laughs.

Gerald’s disappearance made headlines across Australia.

‘Their note said do not call the police, do not involve ASIO, do not hire a private eye and do not try and be a Rambo. We know where you live!’ a bemused Lyndon says.

‘But it didn’t say don’t go to the media, so we went public in the hope of tracking Gerald down.’

It was the local Golden Dragon Chinese Museum in Bendigo that came to the rescue with a cheque as fake as the ransom demand.

‘They wrote us a cheque for $10,000 drawn on the Bank of Paradise to pay for Gerald’s safe return,’ says Jeanette, who won him in a golfing tournament months ago.

A few days later a neighbour knocked on their door in Strathdale, near Bendigo, saying she’d spotted a gnome resembling the 30cm kidnap victim, lurking outside a letterbox down the street – it was Gerald!

The ransom payment, placed under the rubbish bin as instructed, remained untouched and the identity of the gnome-nappers is still a mystery.

Home safe, Gerald remains tight-lipped about his ordeal, but Jeanette promises she won’t leave him ‘gnome alone’ any time soon.

‘He’s safely under lock and key and will be an indoor gnome – tending to a few pot plants in our lounge – at least until things die down,’ she says.