Pranksters stole a £10,000 bust of Baroness Thatcher from an Oxford college and hid it in the bedroom of a rented house.

The bronze likeness of the Iron Lady went missing from Somerville College, where the former Prime Minister was a student, over the summer holidays.

And three Balliol College students were surprised to discover the bust dumped in a bedroom at their rented terrace house in Jericho, north Oxford, when they returned from the summer holidays.

Mariam Faruqi said: "We had absolutely no idea where it came from - we were the only people with keys to the house. "It certainly was a strange experience coming home to find Maggie in the bedroom."

They realised the bust belonged to Somerville when a student at the college told them it was missing.

They contacted the college which dispatched a member of staff to retrieve it. An Oxford University spokesman said: "It's a college matter. The college has confirmed that it did go missing.

"It has now been returned. They are looking into the matter to find out how it went missing. It has been reported to the police."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.