A mountain biker suffers cuts to his leg from barb wire trap strung across a trail in Brighton’s Stanmer Park earlier this week.

On Tuesday evening of this week Riley Alexander was mountain biking with a couple of mates in Stanmer Park, Brighton, when he was snared by some barbed wire that had been intentionally strung across a track.

Apparently riding at a fair old lick – 20 mph according to a report in The Argus – and was riding a jump when the incident occurred.

“I hit one of the jumps, landed and felt something whip up. I thought I had a loose a tree branch stuck in my back wheel, but then I felt something dig in my leg so I stopped and saw barbed wire wrapped around my wheel.

“If I was a less experienced rider and it got caught on a front wheel that I could have flipped them over and done some serious damage. It was rusty barbed wire, so after riding I went to hospital.”

At the Royal Sussex Hospital Mr Alexander was given a tetanus jab.

Although it’s not unknown for trail sabotage to happen in the area, Brighton has had a good couple of years since a spate of cyclist-targetting trip wire incidents that happened in 2015 in woodland areas.

Brighton and Hove City Council are said to be investigating the incident. It’s not clear as to whether the police have been officially informed.