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A bus driver was wrongly accused of owning extreme porn featuring a woman having sex with a tiger.

Andrew Holland, from near Wrexham, north Wales, was arrested and charged over the video which he said he was sent by friends as a joke.

But the Crown Prosecution Service was forced to drop the case in after it became clear the 'animal' was in fact a man dressed in a tiger suit.

Lawyers only realised their error when they turned up the volume and heard an actor say "that's grrrrrrreat", in reference to the Frosties breakfast cereal ads, it is claimed.

Previously, police and prosecutors had not listened to the film with the sound turned on, a court heard.

Mr Holland, 51, said he lost his job, was subjected to a hate campaign by vigilantes and suffered a heart attack caused by the stress of the case.

He told The Independent: "People were ringing me in the middle of the night. Three young lads turned up at my door and were calling me everything. I was threatened on more than one occasion."

He is now supporting sexual civil liberties organisation Backlash in their quest for a change in the law on extreme porn after his ordeal began in 2009.

The group says the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, introduced in 2008, has led to the criminalisation of innocent people.

Lawyer Myles Jackman said: "It is ridiculous and dangerous that the CPS are trying to criminalise the possession of dirty jokes".

Jon Fuller, spokesperson for Backlash, said: "This law threatens anyone with a sex life they want to keep private.

"It threatens ordinary members of the public who exchange dirty jokes by phone and over the internet. Potentially criminalising millions of people is a disproportionate consequence of a law not based on harm and with no clear benefit."