A council worker was surprised to see a young man walking near the town centre dressed in a mankini.

Environmental health protection officer Jayne Lever encountered the scantily clad man as she drove down Victoria Way on Sunday morning.

“As I was driving along I could see this guy standing there and I thought ‘what’s he got on?,” said the Ashford Borough Council employee.

“I thought he was wearing a flesh coloured leotard at first.”

It was only as she pulled over, she realised he was wearing a mankini, the swimwear made famous by actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic Kazakh character Borat.

“The sunshine brings out the best in us – and the most outrageous,” she said. “I took a photo and waved to him.

“He just waved back to me quite nonchalantly. I had to wait for a while to stop giggling before I could make my next visit.”

The mystery mankini wearer was Josh Howard, who was on his way to the beach at Folkestone to enjoy the sunshine with friend Tom Brown, who was wearing similar swimwear.

His mum Amy said: “What is worse he is on the phone to me at the time. How proud we are.”