A British couple whose engagement ended in disaster when the ring fell down the drain have had it returned with the help of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the magic of social media.

John Drennan carried the ring in his pocket for two days before selecting the right moment, in Central Park, to ask girlfriend Daniella Anthony to marry him.

Although Ms Anthony told her husband to be that the ring was too big, he urged her to wear it. But around two hours after his proposal, it slipped off her finger and down a subway grading in Times Square.

The moment was captured on CCTV and showed Mr Drennan desperate attempt to find it.

He said: “We were walking back to the hotel. I can still visualise the ring. Bouncing once, bouncing twice and then it was gone. We just presumed it was gone. In the end we had no choice but to walk away and try to enjoy the rest of our weekend.”

Police were unable to retrieve it at the time and the pair forgot to leave contact details.

But two officers were able to recover the jewellery the following morning from a pile of rubbish below the street and a Twitter campaign was launched to track down the couple.

The tweet, posted with a video of the incident, jokingly read: “WANTED: for dropping his fiancé’s ring in @TimesSquareNYC!”. It received more than 29,000 retweets which eventually lead to a friend spotting it and alerting the couple. NYPD confirmed the successful return by sharing a photo of the happy couple back home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, with a celebratory drink in hand and the ring on Daniella’s finger.