Migrants were discovered by police in the back of a refrigerated lorry after they threw oranges out of a hole in a bid to be rescued.

Motorists in a traffic jam called police on Tuesday after spotting the fruit being tossed from the side of the lorry on the westbound A14 at Brampton, Cambridgeshire.

It's understood those inside the lorry were getting cold, amid allegations they may have been smuggled into the UK.

An air ambulance was called to the scene and landed on the dual carriageway. Cambridgeshire Police said three people ended up being taken by land ambulances to the nearby Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon, but none were found to be seriously hurt.

A police spokesman said a man who was driving the lorry was arrested on suspicion of assisting unlawful immigration. He has since been released under investigation.

A Cambridgeshire Police spokesperson added: "I believe we were called by the people in the lorry initially and then alerted by members of the public who saw objects being thrown from it."

The incident follows the discovery of 39 bodies of Vietnamese migrants On October 23 in the back of a refrigerated lorry in Grays, Essex.