A HAIRDRESSER jumped into a Worcester canal to save three cygnets which he spotted covered in oil and left to die.

Quick-thinking Dean Awford saw the frightened birds as he was walking along the canal near the Commandery with his family yesterday afternoon.

The cygnets were in a "distressed" state with oil, which experts fear could be cooking oil dumped from a pleasure craft, stuck to their feathers.

The 34-year-old, who lost his mobile phone as he plunged in after the young swans, handed them over to the care of Wychbold Swan Rescue after he was told he might have to wait five hours for an RSPCA officer, who was busy on another case.

"It's such a shame the RSPCA is so under-funded and in demand, especially in summer when there are a lot of tourists," he said. "There needs to be another officer."

Mr Awford described today how he had been walking to the Anchor pub with his brother and sister-in-law, Mark and Claire Awford, and his two nephews, to arrange a fund-raising event for St Richard's Hospice, when they saw the birds.

The rescuer, from London Road, Worcester, said they tried to fish out the traumatised cygnets with a long pole, but the birds fought them off so he realised the only way to save them was to jump in himself.

Once he had captured them, they calmed down and he was able to put them all in a box together, before taking them to Swan Rescue, after advice given by the RSPCA over the phone.

After the rescue two more cygnets, both dead, were removed from the canal basin by the lock-keeper.

The rescued cygnets were still in trauma today, but Swan Rescue's Jan Harrigan said they would be cleaned down when they recovered, and were set to make a full recovery.

"We'll hand-rear them until we release them about next May," said Mrs Harrigan, who said cooking fat used on a boat was the most likely cause of their plight.

"There's no point in rescuing them without giving them a reasonable chance."