CHAOS was caused in Barrow after a member of the public called the police after spotting what he thought was a gorilla was on the loose.

The police arrived in Iron Works Road to find it was actually a man dressed as a gorilla to promote a bingo night which is due to take place next month.

The scared caller was thought to have told police there was a gorilla prowling the streets in Barrow. The gorilla, named Nigella, is used to promote multiple bingo nights across the north of England.

The man who runs these events, Adam Robinson, believes that they are usually ‘well received’ but said that it did not go well in this particular case. He wanted to stress that their intention was not to waste police time.

Witnesses to the incident claimed that the gorilla was conducting lewd behaviour in the road.

The Whos? Bingo organiser, said: “It is a costume for Nigella the gorilla that we use for the promotion of our events.

“We got told that someone had called the police and next thing I knew there were two police cars coming around the corner at speed. They were followed up by armed police units as they thought that it was a real gorilla.

“The police did say that we were not doing anything wrong but that we should be more cautious in future, so nothing came of it in the end and we just laughed it off really.

“We do this for promotion and to get a reaction, but obviously the last thing we want to do is waste police time.

“We set off from Leeds at 4am to get to Barrow in hope of catching the BAE workers for our bingo event in February.

“Our event is not serious as you can tell by our promotion techniques, but I guess some people did not see the funny side of this one. It always gets a good response in other places that we have done it though.

“Nigella the gorilla originated from our old club night in Leeds that turned into this bingo event, and she is quite a notorious character in the community.”

The police said armed police did not attend the incident.

A Cumbria police spokesman said: “At around 4.15pm on Thursday January 23, police were called with a report that a man was committing a public order offence in the Iron Works Road area of Barrow. The man was located and moved on from the area. No one was hurt in the incident.”