When the police arrive at your party, it’s time to start behaving.

Not for those at one 50-year-old woman's birthday in Wiltshire, however, who assumed uniformed police community support officer Mike Obern was the male stripper they had hired and "went wild with excitement".

"The party was about to get started and they thought I was early", Mr Obern, who is in his mid-20s and engaged, told the BBC.

"I had to beat a hasty retreat."

"It's a matter of personal taste, but the uniforms aren't very flattering, so I guess [the mix-up] is flattering," he said.

Mr Obern was on foot patrol in Bradford-on-Avon when he noticed a door propped open at a social club he knew was usually shut during the weekend.

There were no cars in the car park so he decided to "poke his head round the door" to investigate.

"But as I went in there were loud cheers and someone shouted: ‘Oh, are you the stripogram?’"

Once he had revealed there had been a mix-up, the women's disappointment didn't last for long.