A mystery biscuit thief is stashing hundreds of packets of the baked goods in gardens.

Residents of Sunningdale Road, North Cheam, have been baffled for months after finding scores of packets of Tesco Value digestives and rich tea biscuits buried in their backyards.

John Barnes said he had uncovered a new packet buried just beneath the surface in his flower beds about every other day.

Neighbours described similar findings, sometimes half eaten and and other times full packets, always with small nibble marks on them.

He said: “We suspect it is foxes but it has been happening at an incredible rate. They must have a mountain of these biscuits somewhere because they just keep coming.

“We see foxes around here all the time, but what is strange is we have never seen them with the biscuits. I has been a real mystery.”

He said it was known to have affected at least a dozen homes in the street.

They break up the biscuits and feed them to birds or chuck them away.

Ted Burden, who runs the Riverside Animal Centre in Beddington, said he believed it was typical scavaging behaviour of foxes that were stashing food to eat later.

He said: “Foxes like to store food so when supplies run out they know they are not going to starve.

"Obviously this particular fox has found a large supply of biscuits somewhere and has been stashing these for some time.

Mr Barnes added: “We had a fox who used to come and watch TV through our window all the time, so perhaps this is him saying thank you.”

The nearest Tesco branch, in Oldfields Road, Sutton, said it had no reports of its supplies of biscuits going missing in recent months.