DIVERS are being lured to their deaths by gnomes sitting at the bottom of England's deepest lake.

The first of about 40 garden ornaments was placed at the bottom of Wastwater, in the Lake District, by a diver as a joke.

But others have followed his lead and the gnome garden has grown.

It has now become an unofficial and very dangerous tourist attraction 260ft below the surface.

Inexperienced divers are spending too long in the water at too great a depth in an attempt to find the gnomes, which have been blamed for at least three deaths.

Police have taken the threat so seriously that their divers have removed the gnomes on more than one occasion - only for them to be replaced.