Staff at William Harvey Hospital's A&E department had to call the fire service to remove a set of handcuffs from a man's wrist.

Ashford firefighters were called to the Kennington Road site at 3am, where the man had admitted the cuffs were just too tight.

After checking with the police that the man was not an escaped convict, the 20 minute task to remove them began.

Watch manager Mark Thomas said: "We used some hydraulic cutting equipment to cut them from his wrist - the man was most grateful."

When asked why the man was wearing the cuffs, Mr Thomas said: "We did not approach the subject."