A BIZARRE hoax involving a reportedly escaped pet snake has left residents of Grange rattled.

The episode began when several posters appeared around the Murell Hill area of the town advertising a £100 reward for a 'lost 19-year-old Burmese Python'.

The snakes typically grow up to five metres long, and the poster featured a picture of a woman holding a huge snake, and a mobile phone number to call with sightings.

However, the number advertised belonged to an unfortunate Grange resident who began receiving bewildering calls and messages, and who wishes to remain anonymous.

"It's just bizarre - for the poster to go up in my town with my number, it was too much of a coincidence for it to be a wrongly entered digit," she said.

"I'm not a member of any associations. I'm a quiet person I don't have any enemies, and it wasn't even just on one poster on my street.

"I've scribbled out my number from at least four posters.

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"I've had some horrible calls but it's had such a knock-on effect with the whole community - people are scared to let their cats and dogs, or even children outside.

"I've had people in hysterics, panicking, calling me.

"I don't want to think it's a hoax, and that it's a coincidence, because otherwise it's just cruelty, I just don't understand it."

Such was the uncertainty of terrified locals, word soon reached the National Exotics Animal Rescue Services, the only exotic animal rescue service in the UK.

Chief executive vfficer Mike Potts said that the case isn't as unusual as it seems.

"We immediately, and quite rightly, raised it as an active case, but we very quickly became certain it was a hoax, despite the obvious effort that had gone into it," he said.

"No genuine lost pet owner would behave like this, putting the wrong number down, of a person in the same town, not responding to any appeals, and the picture actually originates in America, as we discovered. 

"A snake that big is hard to lose - if it escaped in a house it would cause chaos - put all the factors together, it's pretty obvious, but the ramifications are far-reaching.

"Not only does it affect the local residents, who, like us, have to take it seriously, but it has repercussions for the exotic pet-keeping community, as a lot of these acts we find have an agenda to paint them as dangerous and irresponsible."

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