Barbecue surprise for woman with snake phobia
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A woman with a phobia of snakes was horrified to open her barbecue and find one curled up inside.
Sheila Rogers, 62, looked into her gas grill to find a 2ft long corn snake looking back at her.
Mrs Rogers, who suffers from a fear of snakes - or ophidiophobia - ran inside her bungalow in Shurdington, near Cheltenham and called police.
She said a welfare officer took three hours to arrive, by which time she and neighbour Jack Jewitt, in his 80s, had resorted to cornering the snake with a washing basket.
Mr Jewitt threw the basket over the reptile and tipped it into a plant pot held bravely by Mrs Rogers.
The pair then put a saucer over the pot, held down with a car battery, assuming it was a baby python.
Mrs Rogers said she had been getting the barbecue ready for a family gathering on Saturday afternoon when she saw the creature.
She told the Gloucestershire Echo: "It was horrid and I was petrified. I thought it was plastic and my kids had played a joke.
"I was going to brain them as I have a phobia about snakes, inherited from my mother."
The RSPCA identified it as a harmless cornsnake and said it was probably an escaped pet.
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