A nine-year-old boy had to be rescued by firefighters from a pool of slurry which dragged him down like quicksand.

Ben Laycock was cycling over what he thought was a heap of mud next to a footpath on Ditchling Beacon, near Brighton, when he began to disappear into the 4ft-deep sludge.

Within seconds the schoolboy, of Tristram Close, Sompting, was up to his waist.

He could not climb out of the slurry, mixed with other noxious waste and which had been dumped at the beauty spot.

Four fire engines and more than a dozen firefighters rushed to the scene at 3.45pm on Friday to find the boy stuck in a 150-metre by 20-metre area of waste.

Ben said: "I thought it was a pool of soft mud but then I got stuck and after two minutes I started sinking quite fast.

"The more I tried to get out the more I sank. It was scary."

Watch manager Richard Chamberlain, from Preston Circus fire station, Brighton, was among the first to arrive after running the mile from the car park.

He said: "We found a boy up to his waist in toxic stuff and waded in to get him out.

"It's like quicksand. Luckily he did the right thing by keeping still.

"He was lucky he didn't fall down face first or he wouldn't have got out.

"He could have died in it."

After lifting Ben out, Mr Chamberlain became stuck himself and had to be helped out by another firefighter.

Ben's 42-year-old mum Nicky Morris had been walking her boxer dogs along the footpath when her son started calling for help.

She said: "Ben likes to go into anything he thinks he shouldn't.

"He was riding around it then fell off his bike and sank into it."

Miss Morris, who said she had vomited near the waste because the smell was so foul, said: "It's dangerous, right next to the public footpath.

"It should be fenced ff."

Ben was pulled free of the sludge just after 4.30pm and given a ride back to the car park on Guinness, a horse owned by Ditchling resident Edwina Rowling.

He was not injured but after being hosed down he was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, in a waiting ambulance for a check-up.

Officers from the Environment Agency said following initial investigations they believed the waste to be paper slurry, a form of liquefied paper.

But firefighters said they believed the waste also contained asbestos and animal waste.