A five-year-old boy suffered scrapes to his back and shoulders after he fell into an exposed drain after thieves stole the cover.

Keanu Jones, of Dudley Road, Tipton, had been running after his sister Mareece Stanley, 10, along New Cross Street in the town when the accident happened.

The pair had been on their way to a friend’s house with their mother Rachel Jones, who heard screams from them both shortly after they turned a corner.

The 29-year-old mother-of-three ran towards them and saw her daughter trying to pull the boy out of a hole.

Keanu, a pupil at Foxyards Primary School in Tipton, suffered scrapes to his back and shoulders but Mrs Jones said he could have been seriously hurt.

She said: “With it being dark he hadn’t seen the hole. He was crying his eyes out. He had scrapped his back and shoulders and was quite sore. It’s just terrible. There was another drain nearby also with the cover missing.”