A drunken man had to be rescued and taken to hospital after being found in a hole dug for roadworks.

The ambulance service was called to Whitegate Road, near Chichester House, Southend at shortly after 8.10am on Saturday.

They found the 54-year-old local man, who has not been named, at the bottom of a five-foot deep trench.

An Essex Ambulance Service spokesman said: "He said he had been there for several hours after having been assaulted."

Despite the man's claims that he had been assaulted, police believe he had simply fallen into the hole in a drunken state.

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