A great-grandfather returned to his Oxford home after a spell in hospital to find council workers hacking at trees he had tended for 26 years.

Ronald Cox, 87, was spending his first day back at home with his invalid wife Betty, 83, when he spotted officers cutting back his fir trees.

Mr and Mrs Cox had not been at their house in Snowdon Mede, Headington, for six weeks as both had been in hospital, and had then stayed with their daughter in Abingdon to recuperate.

Oxfordshire County Council officers admitted the trees were chopped down by mistake and pledged to sort out the problem.

Mr Cox, of Snowdon Mede, Headington, asked the officers to leave his evergreens alone, but they insisted they were following orders to clear the trees to make way for a sign.

"Without any notice at all, men have come along and butchered trees at the bottom of my garden," said Mr Cox, who has two children, five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.

"They haven't chopped them right down but they have cut them so far back they have killed them, just so they could put a little notice up.

"They could have done it by just chopping them a little way. The way they did it was like using a sledge hammer to break a nut."

Mr Cox, who is recovering from gout, cannot look after his own garden, but has gardeners to keep it tidy for him.

Graham Bullock, a senior council technician, said: "This wasn't deliberate, it was a mistake. The trees were obscuring a parking restriction sign which we have to display to make yellow lines legal.

"The sign has now been moved from the back to the front of the footpath, but it could have been moved to a lamp post.

"It is just unfortunate this happened when the couple were away ill, and rest assured, we will sort it out."