GERMAN supermarket giant Lidl has been left red-faced after its self-adjusting wall clock was found to be operating on European time.

The radio-controlled clock was set to be a Christmas gift favourite among customers because it never needs adjusting.

According to Lidl the wall clocks even automatically re-set for summer and winter time and keep perfect time.

But buyers who paid £8.99 for the Auriol wall clocks were dismayed to find their timepiece was an hour out.

This afternoon a spokeswoman for Lidl confirmed the clocks were faulty.

The mechanism uses a radio time pulse transmitted from Frankfurt - and no one realised German time was an hour ahead of British time.

The spokeswoman said: "This issue was brought to our attention yesterday and we have now issued a product recall. We'd advise any customers who are having problems to return the item to store for a full refund."