Police in Dorset yesterday confirmed that they had received reports of poachers placing jam sandwiches on a road near Tolpuddle. The occasional sausage roll and a mince pie have also been left at the spot at dusk.

Local people claim the poachers lie low until an unsuspecting deer is lured on to the road and knocked over by a passing vehicle. They then dash out and cart the carcass off to be turned into venison steaks and added to game pies.

The problem was first highlighted by Dorset police in November but a resident told a local newspaper yesterday that deer are regularly run over and quickly removed. The villager did not want to be named for fear of reprisals but said he had seen three accidents in the past month and called the poachers "serial thugs".

He told the Dorset Echo: "I see it happening all the time. It was particularly bad around Christmas, when I suppose venison was in demand. One day a motorcycle is going to skid on the bread or hit a deer and there will be a fatality."

Experts said it had been a particularly poor year for acorns - a favourite food of deer in the south and south-west - so it is possible that a jam sandwich and even a sausage roll would be appealing.

A police spokesman said: "Dorset police has received four reports of bread and jam being put into a road in Tolpuddle allegedly to lure deer to their death in the road." Inspector Tony Burden, of the traffic police, added: "People leaving items in the road as a method of luring deer are likely to be prosecuted under the Road Traffic Act for causing a danger to other road users."