A STOWAWAY found strapped beneath a coach in a lorry park after a 300-mile journey had to be rescued by firemen.

The alarm was raised after bangs and shouts were heard coming from underneath a coach, hired from a Burnley company, left at Bolton Lorry Park early yesterday morning.

The man, believed to be an illegal immigrant, faced being crushed to death underneath the coach, which had been parked up after dropping off passengers following a holiday in France.

Firefighters freed the man, who was tied to the underneath of the coach by the straps on his rucksack, using jacks reserved for lifted trams.

It is believed he climbed under the vehicle near Calais before the coach boarded a ferry bringing it back to England.

The coach driver had finished dropping off passengers, who had been on a four-day break to Normandy organised by Surrey-based Newmarket Holidays, and the vehicle had no paying customers on it when the man was found.

The driver went home, but another driver nearby heard bangs and shouting and contacted the coach driver who returned and discovered the trapped stowaway.

Michelle Lynn, whose family own Bolton Lorry Park, said: “They had to cut the strap of his rucksack to release him.”

The man had become trapped when the coach was parked up and the air release system meant the coach sank lower than it does when travelling.

He was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital. His condition is not known.

Newmarket Holidays marketing director Phil O’Sullivan said that the coach had been hired by his company from Burnley-based transport firm Mario Coach Travel.

No one from Mario was available to comment.