Chilton man Paul Dinsley was horrified after he took a bite out of a juicy nectarine he had bought from a local supermarket, and found it crawling with earwigs.

Mr Dinsley, of Burns Road, bought a box of the fruit from the Aldi supermarket at Spennymoor for his ten-year-old daughter Amy.

He said: "I went to take a bite of the nectarine and the middle just fell apart and there were several earwigs inside.

"I felt sick and I had to rinse my mouth out about four times to get rid of the taste.

"It could have been a lot worse if my daughter had bitten into it."

Mr Dinsley, 28, had stored the fruit in his fridge after buying it from the supermarket last week.

He said that when he went back to complain he was told the fault lay with the supplier and not the store.

He said: "I told them that I won't be going back to buy any more food there."

Aldi area manager Oliver Zenner said they were investigating Mr Dinsley's complaint.

"We will be having a word with the supplier to increase his controls and see if he can give us an explanation," he said.