A Devizes family shellshocked when their pet tortoise went missing have been reunited with it.

Adventurous Darweena crept away from the Avon Road garden of Rowena Lansdown and Lee Carpenter on May 5.

The couple put leaflets through their neighbours’ letter-boxes and placed posters appealing for information about nine-year-old Darweena, who was fitted with a tracking device.

Darweena was found by a resident of Avon Road in his garden four weeks after she went missing, without the tracking device, and he contacted the family.

Ms Lansdown, 43, who also has another tortoise, Otto, and two baby tortoises, Charles and Emma, said her children Kai, 19, Jaye, 15, and 11-year-old Maisie were delighted she was back.

She said: “Darweena was unscathed. She has lost a bit of weight, but she is looking fine.

“The other tortoises seem happy to have her back.”

The houses in Avon Road back on to a disused railway line and Ms Lansdown thinks Darweena made her way along there.

She said: “There’s ample food and moisture so she could have lived there forever.”

The family bought Darweena as company for the other tortoises only two weeks before she disappeared.

Ms Lansdown said: “I’m not letting her out of my sight.

“She will not have free rein of the garden.”