Missing snake back home A BOLTON man was charmed to see a picture of his missing pet snake in the BEN last week.

Michael Edgerley had spent £25 on the baby Mexican Black King snake as a pet for his son Brandon, aged five.

But last September, the reptile enthusiast was shocked to discover that the snake, together with a four-foot long Californian King snake, had slithered to freedom after a ladder had knocked off the top of their tanks.

Despite a desperate search by Mr Edgerley, which saw him rip up carpets, crawl under floorboards and pull his kitchen units to pieces at his home in Langshaw Road, the two escapees failed to turn up. Finally, he decided that both snakes must have died, following a bitterly cold spell earlier this year.

But remarkably, the Californian King snake finally surfaced a few weeks ago, coiled on top of the cable box of his startled wife's television.

And now he has been reunited with the 12-inch long baby Mexican black, which was discovered in the garden of a house in Briercliffe Road, Bolton - two doors away from where he used to live.

Mr Edgerley, 38, said: "I had just given up all hope, particularly after the bad weather earlier this year.

"But when I saw the picture in the Bolton Evening News I knew that snake was mine. I didn't even have to read the story, I just knew.

"It's not lost much weight so it must have been hibernating under the floorboards and the warm weather has brought it out." Now Mr Edgerley has taken the snake back from its temporary home in the council's town centre aquarium.

But he has also been given a ticking off from Bolton Police's wildlife liaison officer Sgt Jim Nisbet.

Sgt Nisbet explained: "I spoke to him about the fact that he'd not reported the snakes had gone missing and warned him not to do that again.

"It's an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to allow a non-indigenous species into the wild. If it happened in the future we would want to know about it."

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