A SLIPPERY snake which escaped from her cage and disappeared for almost three weeks is back safe in captivity.

Satana the grass snake managed to nudge the top off her cage and slithered through a hole in the kitchen into a cavity wall.

Owner Chris Winstanley, of Norway House, in Albert Road, Colne, was told by RSPCA officers that the snake would probably not grow any bigger but could live off bugs and spiders for two years and may never reappear.

But Satana was not out of the limelight for long and is now back in her cage after reappearing in a drawer in the kitchen of the flat.

Chris said: "We bought some fish and I had just gone in to the kitchen to get it and the snake was just sitting there in the drawer.

"I managed to get her back in to her cage and we've put heavy weights on the lid now so it can't be pushed open.

"She's fine but I can't pick her up now because she's got a bit vicious.

"I am trying to find someone to buy her because I can't keep her here. She got out of her cage again on Saturday night and I had to try and catch her."

Firefighters were called to the flat when Satana escaped to try and locate her with thermal imaging equipment, but they said short of knocking the kitchen wall down there was nothing they could do.

Satana had slithered through a hole under the kitchen sink and is believed to have been living inside the wall above the kitchen cupboards.

When the snake re-appeared it was the first Chris had seen or heard of her since she vanished.