A badger that fell into a 10 foot gas works pit was rescued by an animal charity.

The animal was spotted down the hole containing gas pipes, in a field on Boyton Hall Lane in Roxwell.

A worker found the badger and kept an eye on it until RSPCA animal collection officer Joe White arrived.

Mr White said: “This badger really was in a fix. When I arrived, he was in the bottom of the 10 feet deep pipe container in the field. The lid had come off the container which is how he’d tumbled in, and there was no way he could have climbed out on his own.

“The container was set in quite a large field, so he was really lucky to be seen and it was really kind of the man who found him to wait there until I arrived, to make sure the badger was okay.

“Using special equipment, I was able to gently lift him out, although he was really quite heavy! After popping him inside a carrier, I gave him a really good check over and could see he wasn’t injured, and like most wild animals, he was just very keen to get away from us, so I then released him and watched him scuttle off - it was clear he knew exactly where he was going. Getting to release animals back to the wild is a really rewarding part of my job.”

He added: “This is a good reminder of the importance for businesses and landowners to regularly check containers that are set in fields, just in case, because as we’ve seen here lids can come loose and wild animals can fall foul of this. Luckily for this badger, his adventure had a happy ending.”