Police have been helping an unlikely family waddle across the road safely.

Officers from Kingsbridge took time out from their busy schedule of rounding up criminals to herding a mother goose and her five goslings across the busy A379 on the outskirts of the town. The drama, which took place on Embankment Road on Thursday, June 14, showed a different side to the everyday policing routine in the South Hams. Drivers waited patiently in both lanes of the road while the geese were shepherded out of harm's way – and some even got out of their vehicles to assist the hard-pressed police officers.The web-footed family were soon safely on their way to paddle in the relative comfort of the estuary – more scientifically and geographically speaking a ria, as some of our readers are delighted to point out to us.