Raccoon spotted in Sunderland by father and son near football pitches

An unusual visitor more at home in the USA than Sunderland has been spotted in the city.

Father and son Wesley and Torin Fagan were shocked to spot a raccoon while out at the weekend.

The pair were in the car near the Ford Football Hub near Pennywell when they saw the unlikely sight on Saturday.

"I nearly ran it over at first," said Wesley.

"It came into the road then went back through the railings, into the farmer's field."

Wesley, 42, in in no doubt about what he saw: "I am really into nature, and I do a lot of work for the RSPB," he said.

"It was 100% a raccoon. It was just staring straight back at me."

Wesley only had time to shoot a few seconds of the animal on video.

"I had all the traffic backed up because I was trying to catch it on my phone," he said.

"I had to jump back in the car because the traffic was held up.

"It ran away - it looked as if it had a sett in the bushes."

Nine-year-old Torin had seen it too: "He was buzzing., He was laughing his head off," said Wesley.

Wesley has reported the sighting to a national exotic animal rescue group, which is going to try to track it down.

"I spoke to Raccoon Rescue UK and there have been three recent sightings in Sunderland, including one near the university," he said.

"They are on their way up and they are going to come and put humane traps down to try to catch it."

It is not the first raccoon - native to North America - to be sighted in Sunderland.

One of the animals was caught in February 2016, several months after it was first spotted in the garden of Ray Forsyth and wife Lynne Wood, with experts suggesting it was gorging on food from bins because of its huge size, tipping the scales at 8.1kg.

Video footage recorded by cameras set up by Durham Wildlife Trust as part of its Mammal Web project, caught the creature on its nocturnal visits

Baited traps were laid down in the couple’s garden and the animal was caught within hours.