An 11-year-old boy was trapped by his ankle for nearly an hour on a breakwater at Sandbanks, Poole, after slipping between rocks.

Paul Spencer, on holiday from Mill Hill, London, who had been crabbing on a groyne near the Haven Hotel, was finally released by fire fighters.

Checked over by casualty staff at Poole Hospital, he was later back playing on the beach.

"I was on the rocks and I slipped, and my foot got caught back between a rock," he said. "I couldn't pull it out because my ankle bone was caught in a rock.

"I started to cry and the crabs were pinching my toes," he said.

Nine firefighters from Westbourne and Poole removed small rocks by hand and used hydraulic tools to lift the huge boulders and free the boy, who was trapped during low tide.

"It was difficult because of the size of the rocks, and there was the concern about moving one rock and making it worse," said Sub Officer Richard Coleman from Westbourne.

Paul was on the second day of his holiday at Sandbanks with his grandma Mrs Daphne Spencer and other family members, and he escaped from his ordeal with only bruises and scratches.

Mrs Spencer thanked fire crews, police, ambulance crews and RNLI beach rescue lifeguards who all took part in the rescue.

"He was more worried about the crabs than he was about anything else. They were pinching his toes," she said.

Banks Road resident George Holsgrove, who watched the incident, said this was an accident waiting to happen.

"I have said someone is going to get trapped," he said. "The rocks get covered by the sea and get green and slippery and that's just what's happened."

Stuart Terry of the Borough of Poole's leisure services said: "This particular rock groyne is regularly covered with sea water and it can become slippery. Because of this no walkway was put on it.

"The majority of the groynes have specially designed walkways so that anyone wanting to walk along them can use them safely."