The Daily Mirror wrongly claimed a front-page picture of a giant rat was taken in Liverpool.

The Mirror’s front page yesterday led with a story headlined, “Plague of giant rats in Britain”. The picture, which showed Adrian Whitaker, 35, from Highgate, North London, with a 2ft rat, was apparently published by the Ham & High last May.

But on the front page of yesterday’s Mirror, the same picture was captioned: “SCARY: Huge brown rat caught in Liverpool”. The Mirror story told how the rodent pictured was caught in the Merseyside city and that pest controller Sean Whelan was shown in the picture.