Anti-metric activists in Crawley painted out the metric distances on 24 road signs - while police looked on and wished them well.

Members of Active Resistance to Metrification (ARM) replaced them with reflective white imperial measurements.

ARM campaigner Tony Bennett was arrested when he began doctoring the signs a few weeks ago but Crawley Borough Council realised its signs were illegal.

Mr Bennett, 54, said: "We are a couple of notches towards stopping the Government wasting billions of pounds on changing all these signs to metric."

His team handed out glasses of wine to celebrate with passers-by.