THE man who doctors believed was in a coma for 23 years is to start blackmailing the shit out of all the people who thought he couldn't hear them.

Rom Houben revealed he had learned some very interesting things about some people over the last two decades that some people's husbands and wives, not to mention the police, might not be too impressed with.

Mr Houben said: "My room was regarded by the hospital staff as a kind of soundproof booth where people could come to discuss their darkest secrets. It was totally brilliant.

"I actually recovered in 1994 but I was having such a good time I decided not to tell anyone. I basically lay there accumulating a mental dossier of lying, cheating and the sort of high-grade filth that even I as a Belgian found vaguely unpalatable."

As a taster of what was to come Mr Houben said that doctor someone has been pleasuring doctor someone else with a large, vibrating something or other for quite some time and it could prove somewhat expensive if both their wives found out.

He added: "I'd like a Range Rover please."

Mr Houben said he would also be extorting money from all the doctors and nurses who used to come into his room late at night and play with him like some kind of giant puppet.

"Hauling me out of bed, propping me up and making me dance like Michael Flatley was not a very nice thing to do. Lord of the Dance is it? As soon as I get out of this chair it'll be Lord of the Arsekickers."

Anne Van Kerken, a staff nurse at the hospital in Zolder, said: "Sneaky little shit. I'm going to have to sell my house."

Meanwhile experts in the UK say Mr Houben's case could lead to the re-examination of more than two million Daily Mail readers.