When Smudge the cat refused to come in one night, the last thing his owner expected to find him playing with in the garden was a missing four foot python.

But as Wayne Savage, of Wellbeck Road, Sutton, was heading to bed last week, he saw his cat by the shed with its eyes transfixed on what turned out to be a snake.

The 42-year-old then embarked on a two hour rescue of the mysterious serpent - which had been missing for for three weeks from a nearby home.

He said: "I went down the garden, and I could see him playing with something, he was patting it, trying to get it to move. I got my torch and saw he was teasing a python.

"He doesn't care, the foxes are afraid of him, they walk the other way when they see him. He runs the street."

As he attempted to snare the serpent with a stick it slithered under his shed where it stayed for the next two hours.

Mr Savage, who works for Merton Council, said: "I wasn't scared, I was a bit surprised to see a python in the garden, but it didn't bother me.

"My brother's got a Burmese Python, they do constrict, but the bites don't hurt."

After two hours laid on his stomach spent trying to push the snake from under the shed with a plank of wood, the python finally budged.

Your Local Guardian: SUTT/WIMB: Escaped 4ft python found in garden

Neighbour Chrissie Swinfen-Green, who was on hand at the rescue, said: "We had a pillow case to put it in. We don't watch the Discovery Channel for nothing."

Once caught, Mr Savage rang the RSPCA and drove to Stonelion Vets in Wimbledon, whose staff got the shock of their lives.

Tanya Gibbins, the surgery receptionist, said: "Most people didn't want to go near it, but one nurse didn't mind. We don't get many snakes here as you can imagine."

The RSPCA informed the vets that a man in nearby Westmintster Road had reported his python missing three weeks before, and the two were reunited.