A FAIRGROUND stall owner saved a five-year-old boy from accidentally strangling himself after he put a cable tie round his neck which got stuck.

Asa Ashcroft, 31, who owns some of the stalls on Old Market Square, managed to cut the cable tie off the boy's neck with a pair of scissors after it had become fixed and he started to panic.

Jamal Jallow, five, had been visiting the beach in Old Market Square with his mother and his six-year-old sister Marianne when he put the tie round his neck.

Jamal's mother Michaela, 42, said: "I'm in shock.

"I saw my little boy die today.

"I thought he had gone."

She said her daughter had been shocked by the incident and added: "We'd had such a fantastic day here in Nottingham, and then he picked up this cable tie and I told him to put it down.

"The next thing I know - he is screaming 'Mummy, mummy, I can't get it off'.

"And then I started screaming.

"The more he screamed, the more I panicked.

"Everyone tried getting it off with these small scissors, but it was so tight, you couldn't even get them underneath the cable tie.

"And then this man came along with the big pair of scissors.

"He saved my son's life."

The family, from Grantham, had decided to spend a day in Nottingham in the sunshine.

Mr Ashcroft said he was walking down to one of his stalls on the edge of the fair ground when he saw a group of people gathering in front of the Council House.

As he came closer he saw the little boy screaming and trying to get a cable tie off his neck.

"There was a lot of panic, so I went quickly to get a pair of normal sized scissors," he said.

"I still don't know where this cable tie came from.

"There must be quite a few around the city to hold up signage and the like."