A 13-year-old boy had to be winched to safety on Friday after becoming stuck in an "extremely perilous position" on a cliff face.

The teenager had started climbing the 300ft rock face near Dover from a terrace cut into the cliff when he found he was unable to move further up or go back down.

The coastguard rushed to the scene at Langdon Cliffs in Kent around 11.10am to find the boy clinging on to the cliff by his fingernails about 175ft from the ground.

James Lorraine, HM Coastguard helicopter captain, said the situation was "particularly difficult in view of the extremely perilous position the young boy was in".

"We knew he couldn't hold on for much longer as he'd already been there for around 30 minutes."