German police rushed to the scene when a worried resident found what he thought was a Second World War bomb in his garden, only to find a particularly large courgette.

Police were summoned to the scene in Bretten, near the south-western city of Karlsruhe, by a worried 81-year-old man.

They determined "the object, which really did look very like a bomb", was actually a 41cm courgette.

The offending vegetable, which was dark, weighed about 5kg.

Police believe someone threw it over a hedge into the garden.

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