ASTONISHED council officers discovered a stowaway Iranian teenager after they heard knocking coming from inside a refrigerated lorry.

Maidstone Borough Council street environment officers Theo Perez and Simon Hayward were on foot patrol in Bishops Way, Maidstone, when they heard sounds coming from an articulated lorry which was pulling up at traffic lights at about 10am on Wednesday.

As the vehicle stopped, the knocking got louder, and a voice could be heard. SEO Hayward asked the driver to stop and investigate.

The driver turned the lorry’s refrigeration system off. When police arrived and opened the lorry, they found a shivering 17-year-old boy from Iran among the cargo of cheeses. He was arrested on suspicion of illegal entry.

Passing motorists, who had stopped to watch, broke into spontaneous applause.

SEO Perez said: "He must have got in somewhere in Belgium, and then it’s gone through France, the Channel Tunnel, Folkestone, up the M20 and into Maidstone – so he’d been in there for six or seven hours.

"He was in a terrible state. He just had a light jumper on."

SEO Hayward said: "He was dishevelled and very dirty. He had got to the point where, if he didn’t made himself known, something awful would have happened."