A topiarist has complained that drunks keep having sex with his ornate “privet lady” hedge.

Designer and silversmith Keith Tyssen, 84, has been carefully cultivating the privet hedge in the shape of a Greek goddess for more than 30 years at his Sheffield home.

But he has been woken up dozens of times in the middle of the night by drunk passers-by “interfering” with his creation.

Mr Tyssen, who has exhibited his work at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, told The Telegraph: “Drunk passers-by climb on top of her and pull apart her legs.

“It’s too banal to talk about what they do to her. Even the girls go crazy and hysterical with laughter as they jump around on her.”