A family are looking forward to Christmas after their new baby was delivered on the roadside by two police community support officers.

Inga Munkova, 26, had been diverted from King’s Lynn Hospital - five minutes from her home - to Peterborough due to overcrowding after her contractions began on Saturday. She got as far as Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in a neighbour’s car when she realised she was not going to make it. But thanks to passing PCSOs Sam Dyer and Donna Thompson, she gave birth to a healthy girl in the back seat of the car.

The officers had no medical training but Mrs Thompson relied on her own experience of giving birth to four children. Ms Munkova, from Latvia, said: “I didn’t have time to panic... The birth took about 15 minutes and was surprisingly easy.”

Cards show ‘gender preference’

Men and women prefer Christmas cards designed by people of their own sex, according to an academic study.

A questionnaire was sent out to 481 men and women in the UK, Germany, France, Hungary and China, prepared by Dr Gloria Moss of Buckinghamshire New University and Dr Gabor Horvath of the University of Glamorgan.

The volunteers were asked to pick their favourite design from a selection produced by male and female designers. The results showed a massive tendency for men and women to prefer cards produced by someone of their own gender, even though there was nothing about the design which could give respondents an idea of who designed it.

Tax police find crocodiles

Belgian police investigating tax fraud found more than they bargained for in a German man’s villa: a Ferrari, 11 live Nile crocodiles and an alligator.

The beasts were discovered behind concealed doors during a raid on the house of the 51-year-old man in Damme, near the Dutch border, last week, the De Morgen newspaper reported.

The suspect, identified as Rolf D., told police the animals were given to him by a German veterinarian who said that he had found them in a deplorable condition and that they were supposed to be taken to a permanent refuge.

Belgian authorities believe they were part of an animal trafficking scheme.

Rudolph look-alike saved

A Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer look-alike has been rescued after the injured deer became trapped in a walled yard, the RSPCA has revealed.

The charity’s officers thought they might be dealing with a Christmas prank when they got the call about a trapped deer with a red nose. But it soon became clear it was a genuine call about a female roe deer that was trapped behind a shop in Dulverton High Street, Somerset, in the UK.

As the doe became increasingly panicked it was running at the walls, causing it to suffer a bloody nose. The inspectors examined the deer and found its bloody nose was only superficial. It was then put in a kennel in the back of a van and driven to the nearest woods, where it was released.

‘Space ball’ drops on Namibia

A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact Nasa and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik, who added locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand.

With a diameter of 35 centimetres, the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of “two halves welded together”.