by Angela Cole

A man laying a patio in his garden dug up a Second World War grenade - but didn't call police until he posted the find on Facebook.

At first, Jon and Julie Read didn’t think they needed to alert the authorities – until friends on the social-networking site urged him to call police.

Mr Read had been digging up a shed base which had been in their garden in Sheals Crescent, Maidstone, for some years on Sunday.

Mrs Read said: "We dig up so much in our garden, because there has only been three owners since the house was built.

"He said to me 'Oh, I’ve found a grenade' and I said 'Oh, have you?'

"We weren’t going to do anything with it as we didn’t want to waste the police’s time but then people were telling us we should call the police, so we did."

Police advised Mr Read to leave the grenade where it was and then patrols placed a cordon around the house and its two neighbouring properties.

They then made the device safe – partly by covering it with sandbags – and shielded the windows of all three properties, before setting it off in a controlled explosion at 5am on Monday.

Police patrols remained at the house overnight.