Man finds dead snake inside Christmas wreath

A father of two received a shock when he bought a Christmas wreath and discovered a snake trapped inside.

Karl Gaskell, 43, and wife Nicki, 40, bought the natural decoration - made from branches and tightly bound straw - from a supermarket to hang on their front door.

They noticed a fishy smell and when they looked at the back of the decoration, they found scaly lumps popping out from the bound straw frame.

Dad-of-two Karl snipped open the string holding it together and pulled out a dead grass snake which had been caught inside the straw body of the wreath.

It is thought it had crawled into the straw to hibernate before the stalks were collected and squashed up to make into the £12 decoration.

Industrial chemist Karl, from Castletown on the Isle of Man, said: "The smell was so bad. The smell lingered for days!

"I don't know what compelled me to put my nose up to the wreath after I spotted these strange grey scales, but I did.

"You could tell it was some kind of dead animal - a reptile, not a mammal.nAnd for a moment, I panicked because I thought - 'what if it was from China?'.

"I suddenly thought if it had come from Asia somehow, poisonous snakes remain poisonous long after they've died.

"So I had it checked out by the Natural History Museum, who got straight back to me.

"We were just super unlucky I think, because it was the first wreath we'd bought ever! It's really put us off getting one again this Christmas!"