Hamster spends five days down a drainpipe - before being lured out with a peanut

James Hammond and his partner Sharon Weaver were shocked when they returned home to find their pet hamster Rolo had managed to escape from her cage.

The couple scoured their house in Sheffield to find the creature. After a sleepless night, they looked behind the kitchen cupboards and noticed a hole in the ground under their sink, where they discovered Rolo hiding — three metres down a drain pipe close to the sink.

The hamster spent four nights down the pipe, leaving the couple no choice but to call out drainage engineer Darren Hatfield, who located Rolo with a special camera.

He succeeded in coaxing the animal back to the surface using a peanut tied to a length of string, and a piece of wire mesh.

Mr Hammond, 40, who works in motorcycle sales, said he and Ms Weaver, 52, thought they had lost Rolo for good.

He said: “It was crazy — Sharon was in tears when we got her back and Rolo was just looking at me as if she was asking what the problem was.

“She’s got big padlocks on her cage now, it can’t happen again.

“We were genuinely upset about losing Rolo, we thought we’d never get her back. Our pets are like children to us.”