The creepy figure has been terrorising a sleep village for years (Picture: BPM Media)

For years, residents of a sleepy West Country town have been terrorised by a mysterious pervert known only as ‘the Somerset gimp’.

The latex-clad man has menaced locals in the villages of Yatton and Claverham in North Somerset on at least 16 occasions since 2016, chasing individuals walking home alone at night whilst grunting.

But the gimp’s reign of terror may have finally come to an end following his latest sighting, which saw a man in his 30s arrested in the village of Cleeve following an encounter with a two teenagers on Friday night.

One of the teens- a 19-year-old who asked not to be named- described the ‘freaky’ late-night encounter which saw him and a friend stumble upon the masked stranger ‘flopping on the floor, writhing and grunting’, in the early hours of the morning.

The witness said he initially thought the man, who was wearing blue latex gloves and was clad head-to-toe in a dark, mud-stained bodysuit, might have been drunk because of the way he was moving.

But as he approached the two teens, the man ‘took a step up on the pavement, arched his body and flopped to the ground, without putting his hands out to catch himself.’

‘His outfit was shiny with some sort of liquid and he was glistening in the torchlight and he smelt really earthy,’ the witness said.

‘After he had gone… you could still smell it,’ he added.

The ‘Somerset gimp’ has long history of terrorising local villagers late at night (Picture: BPM Media)

Although initially disturbed by the encounter, the sheer absurdity of the situation ‘tore through the tension’ and they soon started taking pictures and laughing at the situation.

Police officers responded ‘quickly’ to the gimp’s latest sighting after previous incidents had caused ‘significant alarm’ within the community, and deployed sniffer dogs and a helicopter to catch the masked troublemaker.

Avon and Somerset police later arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of the incident, and are said to be  ‘keeping an open mind about the intentions of the man and whether the incident is linked to any others’.

‘I don’t want this guy to be seen as a bogey man… but this kind of thing, this invisible threat that he could be anywhere… it’s indirectly causing fear,’ the teenage witness said.

‘It’s not just about the encounter, but the effect it has in waves through the community. It’s quite gut-wrenching,’ he added.

At least 16 different individuals in Yatton and Claverham have reported having run-ins with the mysterious gimp between 2018 and 2019.

Sightings ceased for a time after July 2019, until he re-emerged two years later after being spotted peering through the window of a local couple’s home late at night.

An additional encounter was reported in June this year when a young couple claimed they were chased late at night by a man in a gimp suit who sprung out of a dark alleyway and started sprinting at them.

Although the two teens ended up finding humour in their situation, the witness believes some people could be ‘psychologically damaged’ if they saw the same thing and admits he may have reacted differently had he not been with a friend.

The detainee, who has not been named by police, has been released on bail ahead and was ordered to remain at home between 21:00 and 06:00am as part of the conditions of his release.

At least two other individuals have been previously arrested on suspicion of being the Somerset gimp, but they were both later released without charge.

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A man accused of being the infamous pest has been arrested following an encounter with two teens on Tuesday morning.