A couple thought a bomb had gone off when a tin of baked beans exploded.

Argus reporter Ben Leo and his girlfriend Rhian Wade, both from Worthing, jolted out of bed at 3am on Saturday to what they thought was “a small bomb going off”.

However after a brief inspection, the pair could not find the source of the noise and went back to sleep.

But when Ben went to make lunch the following day, he discovered an exploded can of LIDL supermarket beans in his kitchen cupboard.

Ben, 24, said: “We had no idea what it was and at three in the morning we were very confused and tired. It sounded like a small bomb had gone off in the house somewhere.

“I came back in the house the next day and could smell what I thought was our neighbours cooking a curry.

“I went to make some lunch of my own and opened the cupboard to find the beans everywhere. The can had somehow expanded and blown its top. Instead of having beans on toast for lunch I had to clean them up.

“Rhian had only just bought them from the Worthing store and the tin was in date.”

A spokeswoman from LIDL said:“We have strict quality control processes in place with our suppliers and, as such, take these matters extremely seriously.

"We would ask that the packaging is returned to us so that we may begin all relevant investigations into this, along with our supplier.”